What Trump meant when he said the U.S. is cutting aid to Israel

Résumé détaillé

President Trump says he's halting aid to Israel. Israelis are worried. But experts say the U.S. is just shifting aid from the State Department to the Pentagon, with less congressional oversight.

An Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache attack helicopter fires a rocket while flying along the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon, on March 18. Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

JERUSALEM — On the day of the U.S. midterm elections, when President Trump told Fox News he is cutting $4 billion in U.S. aid to Israel, many Israelis panicked. Israel has been one of the biggest recipients of U.S. military aid for decades.

"For us, the U.S. is one of our biggest friends. So when a president says something like that, it's a slap in the face!" says Yair Wairauch, 36, a clinical psychologist in Jerusalem. Local media say Trump's "bombshell" announcement also caught the country's defense and finance ministries by surprise.

Meanwhile, U.S. voters and candidates who oppose U.S. military aid to Israel celebrated Trump's move. Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect from Michigan — who accuses Israel of genocide and apartheid, charges Israel denies — told NPR he thinks the president is "actually right on this policy."

But defense experts and former government officials say U.S. aid to Israel is not going away. It's just changing shape.

Last May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said something similar to Trump's Election Day comment on CBS' 60 Minutes.

"I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation we have, because we receive $3.8 billion dollars a year," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time we weaned ourselves."

This aid was already due to expire in 2028, at the end of a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by President Obama.

With criticism of Israel growing, amid the wars in Iran and Gaza, Netanyahu may have wanted to pre-empt any difficulty renewing that aid package, says Avishay Ben-Sasson-Gordis, head of U.S.-Israel research at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

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