US President Donald Trump’s unexpected claim that Washington will end its $4 billion in annual military aid to the Israeli regime starting in 2027 has been interpreted as an effort at robbing Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed of a focus of the latter’s electoral campaign.

In a telephone interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump singled out El-Sayed while discussing opposition to US assistance to the regime, saying the issue was being used to portray the funding arrangement as “unfair.”

Trump says US will cut $4bn aid to Israel by end of 2026

Trump says US will end $4 billion in annual aid to Israel by end of 2026, citing criticism from Democrats and other opponents of continued US financial support for the Israeli regime.

“The left uses the $4 billion payment — that everybody knows about, it’s no secret — as a signal of unfairness,” Trump said.

Reporting on the remarks, investigative outlet The Intercept wrote, “Trump scrambles to halt military aid to Israel to deprive El-Sayed of a talking point.”

The US president, however, tried to frame his surprising announcement in another light too. “Look, we give them $4 billion of things and money, and they don’t need it,” he said.

Additionally, Trump claimed that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about “ending” the arrangement years ago and that the two had discussed it for a couple of years.

An August Fox News poll found that 55 percent of Michigan voters opposed continued military aid to Tel Aviv, including 70 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents.

A February Gallup poll also found that sympathy for the regime among Americans had fallen to 36 percent, while sympathy for Palestinians had risen to 41 percent.

The announcement came on Election Day, although Trump did not explain why he had chosen that moment to make the claim.

Observers have pointed to the Republicans’ unfavorable chances in the midterms amid the sheer unpopularity of the United States’ unprovoked aggression against Iran that has jolted global energy markets as a result of Tehran’s retaliatory closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

They have cited the US president’s so-called announcement of a pending cut in the US military aid to the Israeli regime as a means of his trying to improve the Republicans’ electoral prospects in the face of the Democrats.

Doubts over aid cutoff

Meanwhile, Trump's pledge remains in question, with former officials pointing to existing funding commitments that complicate an immediate termination.

Under a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed by former president Barack Obama, the United States committed $38 billion in military aid to the regime between 2019 and 2028.

“It’s not plausible there will be a total cut-off starting January 1,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in 2023 over the aid.

Paul suggested Trump might have been referring to negotiations over the next 10-year agreement, describing his remarks as “at best inaccurate or imprecise.”

Meanwhile, a pending “National Defense Authorization Act” includes a provision that critics say would deepen US-Israeli military integration by incorporating Israeli technology into US Department of War programs and supply chains.