Trump says U.S. aid to Israel ends at year’s end under a deal with Netanyahu; the 2016 agreement runs through fiscal 2028

President Donald Trump said Tuesday, Nov. 3, that the United States will stop giving Israel $4 billion a year after 2026 under a deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No executive order, agency notice or text of any new agreement was found by Wednesday.¹²

“We were giving them $4 billion – we are – but it gets cut off at the end of the year,” Trump said in a phone interview on “Fox & Friends.”¹² He also said “we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” adding, “Now, we’ll help Israel if they need it.”²³

Asked why, Trump said, “Because they don’t need it,” and “why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?”⁴ “It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that money is going to be spent on you and your kids,” Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat elected to the Senate on Tuesday, said in his victory speech.⁵

Trump said Netanyahu “brought it up” and that Israel “can buy whatever they want” in weapons.¹ ABC News reported he did not specify which forms of aid would end or how.⁴ Netanyahu told CBS in May, “I want to draw down to zero the American financial support,” and “let’s start now and do it over the next decade”.⁶

What the agreement and Congress’s bills say

The Congressional Research Service, in a report updated May 28, 2025, says a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 covers fiscal 2019 to 2028. Under it, the U.S. pledged, “subject to congressional appropriation,” $38 billion: $33 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants and $5 billion for missile defense. CRS says the agreement is in effect through Sept. 30, 2028.⁷ A White House fact sheet from 2016 gives the yearly figures as $3.3 billion and $500 million, or $3.8 billion total.⁸

Annual funding still depends on Congress: Fox News reported that lawmakers have to approve appropriations every year before the money goes out.¹

The House passed its fiscal 2027 State Department spending bill 217-209 on July 15.⁹ It first rejected, 104-314, Rep. Thomas Massie’s amendment to bar the bill’s funds from Israel and cut $3.3 billion from Foreign Military Financing.¹⁰⁹ The defense authorization bill, H.R. 8800, which the House passed in July, has a section titled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” A July 22 summary said the Senate still had to act.¹¹¹²

Reactions

• Rep. Abe Hamadeh, R-Ariz.: “President Trump is right: the future of our relationship with Israel has to be trade, not aid.”¹³
• Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., quoted by Jewish Insider: “Trump, desperate to stave off a Blue tsunami, now says zero aid to Israel.”¹⁴
• Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of Israel’s Yashar party, in a statement about Netanyahu: “He can no longer be trusted and must be replaced.”²

The Times of Israel, citing the Walla news site, reported that Finance Ministry officials were surprised by the announcement. It quoted an unnamed official speaking to Walla: “No formal document was submitted from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the end of aid,” and “The ministry was aware of the intention to end it, but was surprised by the intention to do so immediately.”²

What the records do not show

• We found no executive order, notice to Congress, signed agreement or change to the 2016 memorandum. General web searches, not exhaustive, found none; we did not review each White House, State Department, Israeli government or congressional site.
• We found no White House or Netanyahu office statement. The Times of Israel reported no immediate comment from the Prime Minister’s Office, and Al Jazeera said the State Department had not immediately responded to it. Those reports date from Nov. 3; a later response may exist.²³
• We read Trump’s words as quoted by news organizations, not a full Fox News transcript.
• We read Walla’s report only as the Times of Israel relayed it, not on Walla’s own site. The official is unnamed, and we have no other confirmation of what the official said.
• We read the May 28, 2025 version of the CRS report; a later version could not be opened and may exist. Congress.gov’s H.R. 8800 page could not be opened, so we did not read the section’s text in the bill itself or confirm any Senate action after July 22. The spending bill’s Senate status is unconfirmed.
• Reuters, Associated Press, The Hill, U.S. News & World Report, Greenwich Time and Democracy Now! pages could not be opened and are not used here.