by Kevin Killough
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the U.S. would stop sending military aid to Israel by the end of the year.
Trump told “Fox & Friends” that Israel is in a position to purchase its own weapons and doesn’t need the U.S. to fund them.
The U.S. provides $4 billion per year in military aid, Trump said, and he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had discussed terminating the funding for years. He said that the idea originated with Netanyahu.
“They don’t need it. Israel is a very thriving country,” Trump said.
The U.S. provides approximately $3.8 billion annually through 2028 under the current U.S.-Israel security assistance agreement.
In June, U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman introduced a resolution to transition the relationship between the two countries from forieng aid to mutual cooperation, joint investment, and shared development.
Netanyahu supported the resolution.
“I am heartened by your enthusiastic support for our plan to develop a new Memorandum of Understanding with the United States government that will draw down U.S. financial military assistance over the next decade and replace it with what you refer to as a ‘new framework of joint defense cooperation, codevelopment, coproduction and mutual investment in areas including advanced missile defense, artificial intelligence unmanned systems, cybersecurity and next generation military platforms,” he wrote.
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Kevin Killough is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
