US decision to pull $4B in Israel aid was made months before midterm shellacking — as Trump weighs next move in Iran war

WASHINGTON — The US has been moving forward with a plan for months to pull nearly $4 billion in annual aid from Israel starting in 2027, as President Trump weighs his next move in the war against Iran that cost him the midterms.

Trump announced the withdrawal of billions of US direct aid on Tuesday ahead of the 2026 elections, but a US official told The Post that negotiations with Israel over a Memorandum of Understanding that expires in fiscal year 2028, had “been ongoing for months.”

The MOU was signed in 2016, and under its terms, the US was providing $38 billion in military aid — $33 billion of which was in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and $5 billion of which was in missile defense appropriations — or about $3.8 billion per year for a decade.

“POTUS accelerated those plans,” the official noted. “But for months we’ve been planning on reducing direct aid and reframing the MOU more as a strategic partnership.”

The US official said that Israel suggested phasing down direct US aid, most of which is FMF, and that it could all be cut off as soon as the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2027 — if the “Israelis are OK with a steeper cliff.”

Such a decision would have to be approved by Congress as well. Reps for Republican leaders of the House and Senate committees overseeing foreign affairs didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“They don’t need it,” Trump had said on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning when asked about the aid, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously broached the subject.

“We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years,” Trump added. “He [Netanyahu] said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”

Hours later, Republicans took a shellacking in the midterm contests that handed Democrats control of Congress. Netanyahu is already grappling with an election that ousted his Likud party from its majority in the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, last week.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli PM’s main rival in the recent election, scolded: “The fact that Israel’s defense establishment is learning of a shift in our strategic relationship through the media, at the same time as the Israeli public, shows just how dangerous Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct is.”

Another Israeli opponent, Yair Golan, told the AP in a statement that the decision would deal a “severe blow to Israel’s security.”

Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance acknowledged in the 24 hours since polls opened on Election Day that the US decision to join Israel in launching a war against Iran alienated voters that had been loyal to the 47th president.

“Iran was a piece of it,” Trump acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal in a Tuesday night interview, when asked about the blue tsunami.

“At the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again because long-term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he also told reporters Wednesday.

The day before, Trump had claimed he was not planning a large-scale attack on Iran in the wake of the 2026 midterms.

In a Wednesday X post, Vance claimed that voters who cast ballots for Trump and him two years ago needed to see the US “[c]hange our relationship to Israel” in order to do so again.

Reps for the Israeli embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment.