First posted on Instagram
Israel will need about $10 billion to pay for outstanding orders of American weapons after 2028, according to a United States State Department document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, leaving a large bill still to be covered even as President Donald Trump says he will end roughly $4 billion a year in American military aid to Israel.
The document, which sets out the position as of April 1, shows Washington has already promised almost $7 billion in military aid to Israel over the next two years, but the remaining cost of the weapons already ordered would still have to be found once the current aid arrangement runs out. American and Israeli officials have been discussing the possibility of phasing out military support for several months, according to the Journal.
Trump announced the cutoff on Tuesday, November 3, in a phone interview with Fox News' Fox & Friends on the morning of the midterm elections. He said the United States would stop paying Israel about $4 billion a year by the end of 2026 under a deal he said he reached with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu months ago, and that Netanyahu himself had raised the idea. "Because they don't need it," Trump said, describing Israel as a thriving country that no longer requires the assistance. He added that Israel would still be able to buy American weapons whenever it wants, and that the United States would help if the need arose.
The money Trump described comes from a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016, under which the United States provides $38 billion over fiscal years 2019 to 2028 — $3.3 billion a year in foreign military financing and $500 million a year for joint missile defence, or about $3.8 billion a year in total. The memorandum is not legally binding, and Congress appropriates the money each year, so a presidential statement alone does not end the funding. Netanyahu's office did not confirm Trump's account of an agreed end-of-year cutoff, and a spokesman told NBC News he did not know anything about the remarks. The Associated Press described the end of the payments as taking effect in 2027.
Netanyahu has himself argued for ending the aid, but over a much longer period. In an interview with The Economist in January, he said he wanted to taper off American military aid within 10 years. In May, he told CBS's 60 Minutes that he wanted to "draw down to zero" the financial support, adding: "Let's start now and do it over the next ten years." In a letter on June 1 to Representative Marlin Stutzman, he wrote that "the time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner," and in an interview with Channel 10 in October he said anyone expecting Israel to keep receiving tens of billions of dollars for its defence budget should "get ready and get used to it: it's not going to happen." Lawmakers in Washington have meanwhile been exploring joint defence production as an alternative framework for the relationship.
Supporters of the change argue Israel should gradually become more financially independent: Israel has approved a 2026 defence budget of about 158 billion shekels, roughly $51 billion, more than three times its level before 2024. Critics warn that an abrupt cutoff could undermine Israel's security and disrupt existing defence commitments, and that the weapons already ordered will still have to be paid for. With no order or bill made public and Congress holding the power to appropriate the money each year, the question the post raises — who will pay the $10 billion — remains unanswered.