US President Donald Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at White House in Washington, DC, on July 28.Ma’ayan Toaf/Anadolu/Getty
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On the morning of Election Day, Donald Trump went on Fox & Friends to deliver a surprise announcement: The United States, he said, would be cutting off $4 billion in aid to Israel at the end of the year.
“We have a helper, and it’s Israel because, you know, we are the big, they are the small.”
This was a recognition that supporting Israel has become utterly politically toxic, and perhaps a last-minute attempt to grasp for votes in an increasingly anti-Israel Republican party—but, weapons trade experts say, Trump’s announcement doesn’t actually indicate the United States will stop funding Israel’s wars. Instead, it might mean that the flow of US military aid to Israel will continue in a less trackable form.
“Like, look at the Middle East. I have total control,” Trump said on Fox & Friends this morning. “We have a helper, and it’s Israel because, you know, we are the big, they are the small.”
He went on to assert that a $4 billion payment to Israel would cease at the end of the year, but—even when pressed repeatedly—did not say whether that meant military aid or cash. And he said that the US would continue selling weapons to Israel.
“[Israel is] fine with it because they’ve become a very successful country,” Trump said. “They don’t need it. And we won’t be paying anymore…we won’t be paying Israel. We’ll help Israel if they need it.”
“American taxpayers will almost certainly be paying more money, but with even less congressional oversight.”
This announcement doesn’t mean the end of US taxpayer dollars financing Israeli wars. “We’re obviously not going to be zeroing out aid,” explained Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy, a former Bernie Sanders aide. “The plan is to rename and reprogram that aid as ‘joint defense partnerships,’ and tuck it into the defense budget.”
Months ago, Congress was already considering phasing out straightforward financial aid to Israel, and instead reframing American spending on Israel as a legally mandated defense industrial partnership, as Americans sour on directly sending taxpayer dollars to the country. A bill currently in the Senate would “establish a cooperative program, with the concurrence of Israel’s Ministry of Defense (MOD), to develop and deploy advanced technologies for countering unmanned systems that threaten the United States and Israel.” Senators will debate the bill after the midterm elections. Trump was likely referring to that repackaging of aid as cooperative weapons development on Fox & Friends, but he didn’t clarify exactly what he meant.
“Consider it barter, military aid or cash,” he said.
In the past, joint US-Israeli military ventures have included projects like Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield. And in June of this year, negotiations for a new memorandum of understanding on joint weapons development with Israel began, as the present memorandum expires in 2028. Amid unprecedented US public opposition to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January suggested Israel should “taper off” direct US military assistance over the following decade. But in its place, Netanyahu proposed a joint weapons research and development model. In the end, Duss said, this setup means “American taxpayers will almost certainly be paying more money, but with even less congressional oversight.”
So Trump’s announcement is more of a public relations move to provide a rhetorical defense against some Democratic talking points, as opposed to a real policy. Trump himself said as much: “The left uses the $4 billion payment that everybody knows about, when it’s no secret, as a, as a signal of unfairness, and we can’t allow that to happen.”
“What’s notable here is Trump’s acknowledgement that aid to Israel is a politically losing issue,” Duss said. “He’s acknowledging that this is dragging the Republicans down.”
In the two years after October 7, the US sent at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel, according to a paper by William Hartung, research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Hartung told Mother Jones that Netanyahu—a staunch ally of Trump’s—might not be thrilled with the timing of this announcement.
“Netanyahu…would not want to do it this quickly,” Hartung said. Netanyahu did endorse the idea of transitioning from a direct-aid model to joint weapons development, “but he wanted it phased in by 10 years from now.”
Trump is still bombing Iran as part of a war conducted alongside Israel: As the Wall Street Journal reported, the Pentagon struck Iran’s Qeshm Island Monday. He may also escalate that war after the midterms, though he told Axios Monday he’s in “no rush” to do so. But in terms of direct aid to Israel, Hartung said,”[Trump] doesn’t like the Democrats using this as a talking point. He is transactional. He’s got this ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality.”
That mentality might be why Trump announced the $4 billion aid cutoff Tuesday morning as part of his final election pitch. “You know, it’s too easy. It’s almost too easy a target,” Trump said, naming Michigan Senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has campaigned on ending unconditional military aid to Israel. “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It is a bad talking point.”
But Hartung said Trump’s announcement, delivered as Americans are headed to the polls, isn’t likely to have much electoral impact. “I didn’t expect him to do it on Election Day. If he wanted to have an impact, it’s getting a little late.”
