Trump cuts Israeli military aid: $3.8 billion in security assistance slashed

Hi there, Noga. So President Trump just announced that he agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu that this U.S. aid to Israel, what he calls paying Israel, will come to a close at the end of this year. What is this aid then, and what will it mean if it stops? Well, it's hugely significant, although, again, as you're saying, this appears to be a surprise announcement by the president. The nature of this aid, the $3.8 billion in U.S. aid, is part of a 10-year contract, an international agreement that was established, that was signed by President Barack Obama. And it was a continuation of other decade-long agreements signed by previous presidents. What it means, by and large, is that Israel acquires U.S.-made armaments with this money. So it's not actually payment, the way the president implied. But a kind of payment in kind, that Israel receives U.S. armaments at a beneficial rate using these dollars that are budgeted for Israel aid, but it all gets to American companies. What the meaning of this will be is extremely significant, especially given Israel's dependence on this, the planning for the years ahead in the defense budget here, and the fact that Israel right now has many open fronts of war that have not yet been resolved. So, Noga, has the prime minister, the Israeli prime minister, reacted thus far? I mean, has he confirmed that he is on board with this agreement as the U.S. president kind of suggested? He has not. We have not heard from the prime minister at all. And I should add, you know, Israel had elections a week ago. No one has seen the prime minister in public. He hasn't been seen for the last week. We have heard today, just now in the last hour, that the Israeli finance ministry and the Israeli defense ministry and the Israel defense forces were completely caught Caught by surprise by this announcement by President Trump. If we look back at previous statements from Netanyahu, I have to say this may go back to somewhere around January of this year when President Trump I wrote a request for a pardon for Netanyahu, and it appeared at that time that Netanyahu started speaking of wanting to, I'm quoting now, wean Israel from USAID. But I don't think anybody on any side of the ocean was expecting this announcement with implications for seven weeks from now, which is the end of this year. And certainly potentially implications for the midterm elections as well. Now, Noga, a final question for you. Both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have been hinting that a renewal of fighting with Iran could be imminent. How would this change Israel's standing in the case of a return to fighting? That's right, and it's one of the huge questions hovering over us right now. I'll give you an example. Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Israeli side really has been more than hinting that he wants to return to war with Iran, whereas we know that the Israeli Army Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, has opposed this and said there's no military justification for that. So, for example, if Netanyahu were pushing for a renewed war and the IDF felt that it now had to stock up on armaments, that it wasn't sure how it's going to be able to budget its weaponry for incoming 2027, which is just around the corner, you might see an even bigger There's a bigger fight between the outgoing prime minister and And the chief of staff of the army, who is going to have to completely reorganize Israeli planning ahead of any war or any other potential conflict. Noga Tarnopolsky, our correspondent in Jerusalem, thank you very much. Thank you, Erin.