President Isaac Herzog said Thursday that the American administration’s announcement halting military aid to Israel caught him off guard. “The matter of stopping American aid hit me like a bolt from the blue,” he said during discussions at the President’s Residence.
His comments came after President Donald Trump told Fox News that the U.S. will completely stop annual military aid to Israel—worth about $4 billion—starting at the end of 2026. Trump claimed in the interview that the move was coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining that Israel is “a wealthy and prosperous country that no longer needs aid money.”
Herzog’s remarks join a chorus of responses heard in Jerusalem in recent days following the American administration’s announcement. Officials at the IDF, Defense Ministry, and Finance Ministry made clear they were unaware of any such agreement, which moves up the timeline by two years—the current memorandum of understanding between the two countries wasn’t set to expire until the end of 2028.
The backdrop to all this is months-long negotiations between the two countries aimed at shifting Israel from a model of aid grants to a model of joint investments and shared defense projects.