Trump is ending military aid to Israel – what difference will it make?
On Tuesday, president Donald Trump made the bombshell announcement that Washington – Israel’s most powerful and longest-standing ally – would end military aid to the country by the end of 2026.
The decision concerns a 10-year pact made during Barack Obama’s administration in 2026 to provide $3.8bn in military aid to Israel every year. This consists of $3.3bn in foreign military financing primarily to purchase US weapons and an additional $500m for annual missile defence.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) starting from 2019 was due to expire in 2028, but the Trump administration made the shocking decision to cut the provision, with almost immediate effect, just two days before America went to the polls to vote in the midterm elections. The Republicans went on to suffer a crushing defeat to the Democrats.
Since Israel’s founding it has been the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid, receiving over $300bn in both economic and military support, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Many have interpreted the change as a seismic shift in the relationship between the US and Israel, but experts told The Independent that the picture is a little more complicated.
While the move has been interpreted by some as a sign of America’s shifting priorities with a population increasingly unsympathetic to Israel following its war in Gaza, experts say that it is all part of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan.
In May, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he wanted to wean Israel off US military support. He even appeared impatient to make the shift saying: “I don’t want to wait for the next Congress. I want to start now.”
Netanyahu said that his goal was to “draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have” in an attempt to create a image of Israel as self-reliant and independent. This will be of particular importance with Netanyahu losing his majority in the Knesset.
Making his announcement, Trump confirmed that the Israeli leader had come to him with the idea months ago and that they had collectively agreed to cut off support by the end of the year. Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that the end of aid shows the “strength” of the US-Israeli relationship.
“It is his [Netanyahu’s] idea,” says Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum. “Ending aid gives Israel full control over what it buys and where it builds it, and it removes the main argument US critics use against the alliance.”
He says that the decision “moves from aid to partnership, with arms sales, co-production, intelligence sharing, and joint operations like the war against Iran.”
Nevertheless, president Isaac Herzog says that the announcement came like a “bolt from the blue” and Israeli media report that there is still considerable confusion around the agreement.
“Nobody knows anything, except that Bibi promised him he would give it up without making a fuss,” one senior Israeli official told Ynet.
The suddenness of the announcement means that the economic impact on both Israelis and Americans could be powerful.
