WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, November 3, that he made a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington would stop $4 billion — yaani, four arab dollars — in funding to Israel after the end of this year, but will still sell weapons to its close Middle East ally, Reuters reported. Trump made the announcement on Fox News' “Fox & Friends” programme, speaking as US voters headed to the polls for midterm elections that will decide who controls Congress.

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“Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we're stopping,” Trump said. “We've already agreed that by the end of this year we won't be paying Israel. Now we'll help Israel if they need it,” he said. Asked why, he added: “We were giving them 4 billion, we are, but it gets cut off at the end of the year. Why? Because they don't need it.”

Source: Reuters via KTWB

What Trump did not explain

Trump did not provide details, and it was not immediately clear which funding he meant, Reuters reported. He also did not explain how the funding would be stopped at the end of the year, given that the memorandum of understanding providing $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel each year does not expire until September 2028. Conversations have been under way on how Washington's assistance to Israel would evolve beyond that date. It was also unclear why Trump chose to announce on Tuesday a deal he said he made months ago. Neither the White House nor Netanyahu's office responded to Reuters' requests for comment, so as of Tuesday there was no confirmation from either government of a written agreement, its terms, or a start date beyond Trump's own words.

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One legal point matters to how any stop could happen: Congress passed a law in 2020 authorising the funding for Israel, but the Senate and House of Representatives must still pass appropriations bills every year to distribute and release the funds, Reuters reported. That means the annual money flows through Congress — the same Congress whose control was being decided at the ballot box on the day Trump spoke.

Source: Reuters via The Business Standard

Netanyahu himself had warned Israelis the aid would not last

Trump's claim of a deal sits alongside a public warning Netanyahu gave his own public only weeks earlier. The Israeli prime minister said in an interview with an Israeli television channel in October: “If you think we're going to continue receiving what I secured twice, and that's tens of billions of dollars in American aid for the defense budget, prepare yourselves and get used to the fact that it won't happen because America has changed.” Israel's future leadership is itself uncertain after the October 27 election, in which Netanyahu — who has allied himself tightly to US Republicans — lost his governing majority but denied his opponents a clear path to unseat him, paving the way for protracted negotiations over a new government, Reuters reported.

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Why Trump announced it on election day

Trump said Israel no longer needed the funding and that some Democrats and left-wing politicians were using US financial support to Israel as a talking point to criticise his fellow Republicans, Reuters reported. Underscoring the political nature of the comment, he specifically mentioned Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Michigan, when explaining why Washington was stopping the money. El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim to serve as a US senator if he wins, has opposed unconditional military aid to Israel, saying US funding should prioritise US citizens. “Because they (Israel) don't need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don't need it? It's a bad, it's a bad talking point,” Trump said, in the words Reuters attributed to him.

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The politics behind the announcement run in both parties. US public support for Israel has fallen since the Gaza war began in 2023, particularly among Democrats: a June Quinnipiac University poll found 48 per cent of voters — and 66 per cent of Democrats — believe the US is too supportive of Israel, up from 16 per cent and 20 per cent respectively when the question was first asked in 2017, Reuters reported. Support for Israel among Democratic voters has plummeted, candidates critical of Israel are winning Democratic primaries, and even moderate lawmakers are increasingly willing to challenge decades of US support. At the same time, some members of Trump's own Make America Great Again movement have also become increasingly critical of Israel, accusing it of having misled the president — who campaigned in 2024 on a promise to avoid foreign military interventions — into believing Iran could easily be defeated in a war, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via The Business Standard

What it would mean in the Middle East

The United States is in the middle of a war alongside Israel against Iran that began with the US-Israeli strikes of February 28, and American forces carried out further limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz only on Monday. A confirmed end to $4 billion a year in funding would be the largest single change to the US-Israel military relationship in decades: it would push Israel toward paying for more of its own defence — Trump stressed that arms sales, which Israel pays for, would continue — at the very moment Israel's defence spending is stretched by the Iran war, by Gaza and by Lebanon. For the Gulf states and for the lakhs of Punjabi and Indian workers who live and work across the region, a weaker or more self-reliant Israel is one more moving part in a war whose oil, shipping and safety effects they already feel directly.

Source: Reuters via KTWB

Monday's Qeshm Island strikes — the latest US action in the war that forms the backdrop to Trump's announcement — were reported in full earlier: Read: US strikes Iran's Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz

What happens next

Three tests come first. The White House and Netanyahu's office will either confirm Trump's account of a months-old deal or leave it as a presidential statement without paperwork — and Israel's coalition negotiations after the October 27 election mean it is not yet clear who will lead the government that answers. Congress will decide the money in practice when it passes the next appropriations bills, under whichever party controls the House and Senate after Tuesday's vote. And the already-running talks on how US assistance evolves after the memorandum expires in September 2028 will now be read against a much earlier claimed cut-off: the end of this year.