U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated this Tuesday that Israel is "sufficiently prosperous and rich" to continue purchasing U.S. armaments without needing financial backing from Washington, also emphasizing that President Donald Trump intends for the end of this support to come "as soon as possible".
Rubio explained that both governments are immersed in negotiating a new memorandum of understanding ahead of the upcoming expiration of the current agreement and highlighted that Trump "has expressed his desire for the portion corresponding to final financing to end as soon as possible".
"We are addressing this aspect within the framework of the memorandum of understanding negotiation. The president's premise is that Israel is today a country sufficiently prosperous and rich to do without that financing and move to a procurement scheme," he said.
"They can keep buying arms from us, but it is no longer necessary for us to provide the financing. This is something that the Israelis themselves have proposed," he said, before adding that Israel's own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, "has stated his intention to stop receiving foreign military financing and move to a model based on the purchase of military equipment".
Along these lines, he indicated that Trump has taken a position in favor of putting an end to this financing by the end of the year and defended that the Israeli executive could adapt to this timetable "if they wanted to". "Without a doubt," he said, also stressing that Israel "also manufactures armaments" and pointing out that "part of the memorandum of understanding could include the possibility of coproducing certain elements".
"With regard to financing, I believe Israel has already moved past that stage; in fact, they themselves have acknowledged it," the head of U.S. diplomacy insisted. "We will negotiate the timelines, even though the president (of the United States) wants this to happen as soon as possible. He believes it makes sense to carry it out as soon as possible," he added.
Trump announced last week that Washington will stop delivering $4 billion (about €3,575 million) in military aid to Israel at the end of the year, stressing that this decision is part of an agreement reached with Netanyahu.
"We were giving them 4,000 million (dollars), but we will cut it at the end of the year, because they don't need it anymore," he stated to the US network Fox News, pointing out that this volume of military support for Israel has become one of the main points of criticism aimed at Washington since the start of the war in the Middle East.
Currently, a memorandum of understanding is still in force that provides for 3,800 million dollars (around 3,400 million euros) annually in military aid to Israel, with an expiration date in 2028. Netanyahu himself said in May, in an interview with the US network CBS, that he trusted that the country would stop depending on this support within a period of ten years.