Trump announces the end of direct military aid to Israel and its conversion into arms sales

IN 30 SECONDS

• What has happened? donald trump confirmed in an interview with Fox News that USA will stop funding Israel’s security before the end of the year. The money does not disappear: it is converted into arms sales.
• Who is behind? He president of the United States and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahuwhich according to Trump approved the agreement months ago.
• What impact does it have? Israel loses 4,000 million annually in direct financing and Spain, buyer of American military material, competes for the same production lines in the midst of European rearmament.

donald trump has confirmed the end of direct military aid to Israel: The 4,000 million annually will stop leaving the US Treasury before the end of the year. What until now was a subsidy becomes the purchase of weapons.

The announcement was made by the president himself in a telephone interview with Fox News this Tuesday, in the middle of election day. ‘We are not going to pay more for Israel,’ he said. ‘They don’t need it.’ The phrase sums up the twist: The alliance is maintained, the bill changes hands.

‘When it comes to paying Israel, Netanyahu and I have made an agreement: we give Israel 4 billion a year. We agreed months ago that we left it,’ he explained. ‘They agree because they have become a very successful country.’

The figure handled by the White House is round. The memorandum of understanding that Barack Obama signed in 2016 set 3.8 billion annually until the end of 2027 and forced Israel to spend most of it on American industry. Trump talks about 4,000 and advances the withdrawal by more than a year. The detail of how the cut is executed remains to be seen: these items are approved by Congress year by year.

From the annual check to the sale of weapons: what ends and what stays

Trump has not detailed how much of the defense cooperation remains intact. ‘We will help Israel if it needs us. “He has been a great ally and we have been the best of all his allies,” he assured. The reading that is imposed in Washington is that of the change of channel: direct financing is transformed into military sales abroad, the mechanism by which the State Department Authorizes allied governments to purchase US weapons.

Benjamin Netanyahu It has been preparing its Parliament and public opinion for this scenario for months. He has warned that US financing could not be taken for granted in the long term and has recognized a deterioration in the relationship, with industrial self-sufficiency as an argument. Trump presents the agreement as mutual; no Israeli source has confirmed this in writing.

Washington does not break with Israel: it changes the bill. The alliance remains intact; What disappears is the annual check.

The calendar is not coincidental. The announcement came with the polls open and with the Republican Party dealing with the discomfort over the cost of living that the war with Iran dragged on. The decision is based on data from the Pew Research Center: in 36 countries, a median of 67% of adults have a negative perception of Israelcompared to 25% positive. The collapse is also measured within the United States, in both parties.

The impact for Spain: same factories, more buyers

Spain It is not at the center of this decision, but it absorbs part of the indirect bill. The country purchases US defense material through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS), and each order that enters that queue competes with the rest of the allies. If Israel goes from recipient of aid to buyer with its own funds, it becomes just another customer in the same production lines.

The Spanish-Israeli bilateral relationship remains frozen. Since 2024, Spain maintains the suspension of arms sales to Israel and recognized the Palestinian State; Israel is not among the top twenty Spanish trading partners. In Brusselsthe debate on the EU-Israel association agreement continues open and without a fixed calendar.

The real effect for the Spanish industry is different: European rearmament and the purchase of American systems are financed with the same budget, more orders, and more waiting lines. The defense investment objectives agreed upon in NATO push Madrid to sign orders that will now take longer and cost more. Spanish defense companies, with Indra and Navantia Looking for a gap in supply chains, they notice that bottleneck before governments do.

Washington Logic

The decision is understood from within the American political system. Trump has been defending for a decade that the United States should not subsidize the security of countries that can pay for it, and that message is today the backbone of his coalition: fiscal hawks, the anti-interventionist wing that demands turning off the tap on foreign aid, and an electorate that associates checks abroad with money that does not reach home. Conversion into sales preserves the alliance and employment in American factories without having to defend a subsidy. The contradiction is in the other half of the coalition: the evangelical base and the big pro-Israel donors of the Republican Partywho read the help as a red line.

The closest precedent is from 1991, when George H.W. Bush withheld $10 billion in loan guarantees from Israel to force a settlement freeze. He was the last Republican president to use the check as leverage. The difference is that Trump does not retain: he withdraws. The key window is December 31; From there, Congress will have to decide whether to accompany the change or stop it in the appropriations law. Obama’s memorandum expires at the end of 2027, so the architecture of the bilateral relationship will be renegotiated from scratch over the next two years.

Case File

• The case: Trump confirms that the United States stops transferring 4 billion annually to Israel and transforms aid into arms sales before the end of the year.
• Key data: 4 billion annually according to Trump; Obama’s memorandum (2016) set 3.8 billion and expired at the end of 2027. The cut is announced more than a year in advance of that calendar.
• For Spain: without direct impact on the bilateral relationship, but it makes purchases of American material more expensive and delays in the midst of the European race for rearmament.