On midterm morning, Donald Trump told Fox News the $4 billion a year stops in December. Israel's ministries were blindsided, but the destination is one Netanyahu set himself: from aid recipient to partner. The fight is over the clock, not the direction.
On Tuesday morning, November 3, as Americans headed to the polls for the midterms, Donald Trump called in to Fox and Friends and said something nobody in Jerusalem expected that day. "We made a deal months ago that we're stopping," he said of the roughly $4 billion the United States sends Israel each year in military aid. Asked why, he answered host Brian Kilmeade in four words: "Because they don't need it."
The facts first, because the president's phrasing has outrun the paperwork. The aid flows from a ten-year memorandum of understanding signed on September 14, 2016, under Barack Obama: $38 billion through September 2028, or $3.8 billion a year. Trump's $4 billion is a round-up. Of that, $3.3 billion is Foreign Military Financing and $500 million funds joint missile defense, Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow. As The Jerusalem Post noted, the memorandum is not a treaty, and annual funding "remains subject to congressional appropriations." A handshake between two leaders does not, on its own, cancel money Congress has already voted. No document was presented, no implementation plan, and by Tuesday night the Prime Minister's Office had said nothing.
