Netanyahu Responds to Trump Decision to End US Military Aid
Netanyahu’s office responds to Trump’s announcement ending US military aid to Israel, saying the support will shift to a partnership between the two countries.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued its first response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement that Washington will end its annual military aid to Israel, saying on Friday, that American assistance is now being transformed into a partnership.
Trump made the announcement on Tuesday, the morning of the US midterm elections, in a phone interview with Fox News.
The decision, which came unexpectedly, ends annual aid worth $3.8 billion. Netanyahu’s office confirmed Trump’s decision, but, as CNN reported, its statement did not engage in substance with what could be a major shift in US-Israeli relations.
In a statement on the social media platform X, Netanyahu’s office said US aid to Israel has long enjoyed bipartisan support. It said Israel used the assistance to defend itself and confront enemies who threaten America and the West.
The statement added that Netanyahu and Trump are working to change the nature of the relationship from “military aid” to a “partnership” between the two countries.
Those discussions began in May, but it remains unclear whether a new framework agreement is being drafted to replace the current memorandum of understanding, which provides for $3.8 billion in annual aid to Israel through 2028.
The statement also did not address Trump’s assertion that the two sides had reached an agreement to end military aid by the end of the year. Nor did it say whether Netanyahu had received advance notice of the announcement.
The post on X included a video of a Fox News interview with Netanyahu’s spokesman, Doron Spielman. He said the aid had been “extremely important” to Israel, adding: “We are very grateful to the American people.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, for his part, described the announcement on Thursday as coming “like a bolt from the blue.”
Herzog said: “The issue of American aid worries me greatly, and this announcement struck me like a bolt from the blue. We have a memorandum of understanding with the United States that is supposed to last until 2028, and this is one of the main goals. So a government must be formed and repeated elections avoided.”
Under the agreement, US security assistance to Israel totals $38 billion over 10 years, including $33 billion to fund weapons purchases and $5 billion for missile defense.
Implementation began in 2019. Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, signed the deal three years earlier.
Netanyahu had previously voiced a desire to end Israel’s reliance on financial support from its ally. In May, he told the US network CBS that he intended to reduce that support to “zero.”
An academic study published last year showed that the United States, under the administrations of Joe Biden and Trump, provided at least $7.21 billion in military aid to Israel since the Gaza war began in 2023.
With the memorandum of understanding set to run until 2028 and no clarity on whether a new framework is being drafted, the shape of the proposed US-Israeli partnership remains to be defined.