Trump: U.S. will end its $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel at the end of 2026, under a deal he says Netanyahu proposed

President Trump said Tuesday that the United States will stop giving Israel about $4 billion a year in military aid at the end of this year. "It gets cut off at the end of the year," he said in a phone interview on Fox & Friends, Fox News and NBC News report. "They don't need it. Israel is a very thriving country."

Trump said Israel "can buy whatever they want" from the U.S. instead, and that "we'll help Israel if they need it." He said the arrangement came out of talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he said had proposed it months ago, and argued the aid had become "too easy a target" for the left. He also joked that if Americans ever got tired of him, he would move to Israel and become prime minister, citing "99% approval" there.

The current aid deal, a 2016 memorandum of understanding, gives Israel $3.8 billion a year through fiscal 2028: $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing and $500 million for missile defense, according to the Congressional Research Service. Congress controls the money, and it is not clear how the administration would end the payments early. Netanyahu said in January that he hoped to taper U.S. aid off over about a decade. His spokesman told NBC News he was not aware of Trump's remarks and would check.

Opposition leader Yair Golan called it a "massive failure" and a "severe blow to Israel's security," The Jerusalem Post reports. The AP and Reuters also report Trump's remarks.