American President Donald Trump announced today that the United States will end its annual military aid to Israel by December following an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
© Lusa
03/11/2026
by
Lusa
O President Donald Trump announced today that the United States will end its annual military aid to Israel by December following an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“ We are giving Israel $4,000 million (about €3,800 million) a year and we agreed a few months ago to end it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox News.
The US President assured Netanyahu that he agreed to the decision, justifying the end of financial assistance with the economic and military capacity achieved by Israel.
“It’s a very prosperous country. They don’t need help,” Trump said, adding that Washington will stop directly funding the ally from the end of 2026.
Trump assured, however, that the decision does not represent the end of military cooperation between the two countries.
“We will help Israel if we need it. They have been great allies and we have been the greatest allies of all,” the American President assured.
The announcement represents a significant change in the US military assistance policy to Israel, traditionally the main beneficiary of this type of support from the United States.
Currently, aid is framed in a bilateral memorandum of understanding, negotiated during the Barack Obama administration, which provided for aid over 10 years, until 2028.
A substantial part of the resources has been used by Israel to acquire arms and defense equipment produced by US companies.
The decision announced by Trump thus anticipates the end of a financing mechanism that should remain in force for another two years.
The Israeli Prime Minister had already publicly advocated a progressive reduction in his country's dependence on US military assistance.
In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes program in May, Netanyahu stated that he intended to reduce this aid to zero over the next decade.
“ We came to age”, said the Israeli Prime Minister, defending the transition from a model of financial assistance to a strategic partnership relationship.
In July, during contacts in Washington, the head of the Israeli Government again presented the proposal for a gradual transition, which would enable cooperation to be maintained in areas such as anti-missile defence, weapons development and information sharing.
The United States and Israel maintain one of the world's closest military cooperation relations, involving arms supply, joint development of defense systems and sharing of strategic information.
The relationship has been the subject of increasing political debate in the United States, particularly due to Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip and the war with Iran.
The announcement was made on the day of the American mid-term elections, which will determine the control of Congress during the last two years of Trump's presidential mandate.