Trump says US will end nearly $4B in annual Israel aid by year-end

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will end its nearly $4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the end of 2026. Trump said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the cutoff months ago, arguing that Israel no longer needs the assistance and that the payment had become an easy political target for critics on the left.

The announcement changes the status of an annual military-support arrangement that Trump described as no longer necessary. It also comes with a political explanation: the president linked the decision to criticism of the aid at home, rather than presenting it solely as a change in defense policy.

The decision directly connects Trump, Netanyahu and the US-Israel security relationship. For Israel, the affected mechanism is the nearly $4 billion annual military-aid commitment; for the United States, the change removes that recurring payment from the relationship's current structure.

The timing and implementation details remain open, including how the cutoff will be executed by year-end and whether the arrangement announced by Trump will be revised. Trump also joked that he would move to Israel and become prime minister if people became tired of him, but that remark did not change the aid decision itself.

The next points to watch are any formal US or Israeli action before year-end, and whether the two governments retain, replace or otherwise alter the military-support arrangement.