Trump says US will stop $4 billion annual funding to Israel after this year, under deal agreed with Netanyahu
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed months ago that the $4 billion a year in US funding to Israel would stop at the end of 2026.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States will no longer be providing funding to Israel after the end of this year, saying he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already agreed the change months ago.
Speaking on Fox News' Fox and Friends on Tuesday, as voting began in the US midterm elections, Trump put the annual figure at $4 billion. He said: "Now, 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." He added: "We've already agreed that by the end of this year we won't be paying Israel. Now we'll help Israel if they need it."
Trump also gave a political reason for the timing of the announcement. According to reports of the interview, he said Israel no longer needs the money and that some Democrats and left-wing politicians had been using the funding as a talking point to criticise Republicans, a line of attack he appeared keen to remove on election day itself.
The wording leaves an important question open. Trump said funding would stop, but also said the United States would still help Israel if it needed help, and the interview excerpts reported so far give no detail on what form any future help might take, whether it would cover existing deliveries or commitments already in the pipeline, or how any change would be put into effect in law or in budget decisions.
That distinction matters because annual US funding to Israel has long been treated as a settled, recurring commitment rather than a one-off payment. A decision to end it outright would therefore be a major shift in the relationship, while a narrower change — for example to the way a particular annual payment is described or delivered — would be something quite different. Until a formal statement, document or confirmation from the Israeli government or US agencies is published, the announcement rests on Trump's own account of a deal agreed months ago.
The announcement came on a day dominated at home by the midterms, in which all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 Senate seats and 36 governorships are being contested. Polls and reporting ahead of the vote have consistently put the cost of living at the top of voters' concerns, and Trump has framed the election as a test of his second term, including his handling of the economy and of foreign conflicts.
Abroad, the backdrop is an eight-month war involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which has already spread to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, to Saudi airports and to Yemen. In recent days, US forces carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island, while Qatar has said Washington and Tehran are both reviewing mediator proposals aimed at ending the war. Against that background, any change in US support for Israel will be read closely in Tehran, in Gulf capitals and in Jerusalem itself.
No immediate reaction from the Israeli government was included in the reports of Tuesday's interview, and no response from Congress, the Pentagon or the State Department had been reported in the excerpts available at the time of publication. Those reactions, if and when they come, will help show whether the announcement is being treated in Washington and Jerusalem as a done deal, a negotiating signal, or a statement that still needs to be worked through in detail.
Several things could happen next. One possibility is a formal confirmation or clarification from either government, spelling out what ends on 31 December, what — if anything — continues, and how existing military cooperation is affected. Another is a debate in Congress, where funding decisions are normally written into law, over whether any change needs legislative action and whether members from either party seek to preserve, reshape or end the arrangement.
A third possibility is that the announcement becomes part of the wider argument over the Iran war and the post-election direction of US foreign policy, with supporters presenting it as evidence that Israel can now stand on its own feet and critics questioning whether it weakens a key ally at a moment of continuing regional tension. For now, the one fact firmly established is Trump's own statement: in his telling, the $4 billion a year ends this year — with help still available if Israel needs it.
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