Netanyahu proposed a 10-year phaseout earlier in 2026
President Trump said Tuesday that the United States would cut off aid to Israel by the end of the year, in an interview with Fox News on Election Day. “We won’t be paying anymore to Israel,” Trump said. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year, we won’t be paying Israel.” The announcement suggested the phaseout of direct military assistance to Israel could occur much faster than expected.
Any unilateral move to eliminate U.S. aid to Israel would require cooperation from Congress, which has authorized billions in annual assistance through 2028. Trump said he had previously discussed the matter with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “As far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping and they’re fine with it,” Trump said. “They’ve become a very successful country. They don’t need it.” The White House and an Israeli government spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Netanyahu’s own position predates Trump’s announcement and reaches much further into the future. The phasing out of direct U.S. military aid to Israel has been under discussion for months, with Netanyahu publicly saying the country should eventually wean itself off U.S. assistance. Earlier in 2026, Netanyahu said publicly that he wanted to completely phase out U.S. military aid to Israel within 10 years, while maintaining close defense cooperation. Trump’s end-of-year deadline puts the cutoff well ahead of that 10-year horizon.
The money at issue runs to the hundreds of billions of dollars over the years. According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has provided Israel with about $174 billion in military assistance and funding through May 2025. Congress has authorized billions in annual assistance through 2028, which places the end-of-year cutoff Trump announced inside the current authorization window.
Lawmakers have drafted legislation that would shift funding from direct aid to joint defense technology and industrial investments between the United States and Israel. Advocates of the legislation said it would make it easier for the Pentagon to cooperate with Israel on procuring cutting-edge military technologies. Critics said it would embed Israel deeper into Pentagon supply chains and programs in a way that makes it difficult to uproot should lawmakers reassess U.S.-Israeli defense cooperation in the future.
That proposal could be part of the new annual U.S. defense policy package, called the National Defense Authorization Act, expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Trump cast the decision as a political calculation, arguing that ending the aid would deprive Democrats and other critics of Israel of a political talking point. “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad talking point,” he said, referring to Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee. “The left uses the $4 billion payment…as a signal of unfairness. It’s almost too easy a target.” El-Sayed has campaigned on ending unconditional aid to Israel.
Trump also said the United States would help Israel if the country needed assistance. When asked to clarify whether the United States was no longer giving Israel $4 billion worth of weapons, Trump replied: “We have total control of the Hormuz Strait.”