US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Washington is ending a 10-year security assistance deal with Israel that allowed $3.8 billion in annual assistance to its ally until 2028.
Trump said Israel was “fine” with him ending the assistance, which began in 2019 and was signed under his predecessor, Barack Obama, three years earlier.
“We’ll help Israel if they need it,” he added in an interview on US current affairs show Fox and Friends, saying that he had agreed with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut the assistance.
“Israel’s our number one; we give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it … If they did need it, I would say keep it going,” Trump added.
Under the deal, Israel receives financial assistance for the purchase of around $3.8 billion of weapons a year.
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has received more than $300 billion, adjusted for inflation, in US economic and military assistance, according to figures from the Council on Foreign Relations, far more than any other country has received since 1946.
The Israeli premier has previously said he wanted to end Israel’s reliance on US support.
In June, Netanyahu called for his country to increase its military autonomy and reduce its reliance on Washington.
In January he told The Economist that he hoped to do so within a decade, while in May he told US broadcaster CBS that he wanted support to reach “zero”.
On Tuesday, Trump cited attacks by leftist Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the US Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections after harnessing popular discontent and anti-Israel sentiment, as part of the reasoning behind the decision.
“Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?” he said on Fox, referring to Israel and the aid.
Source: AFP
