President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he "knows who the boss is" — and the planned White House meeting that follows will test whether American foreign policy serves the people who fund it or the governments that consume it.
The remark, delivered to Axios during a Saturday phone interview, came amid rising tensions between the two leaders over Israel's military conduct and the billions in American tax dollars underwriting it. Netanyahu could visit Washington as early as next week, after Trump returns from the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7-8, though Israeli officials told Axios the meeting may slide to the following week.
This would be the first sit-down between the two since their February Situation Room meeting, where Netanyahu presented his plan for launching a joint war against Iran. The Gateway Pundit noted this would be their eighth face-to-face since Trump returned to the White House — a remarkable frequency that raises its own questions about whose agenda is driving the schedule.
The friction is real and it's over American money and American interests. Trump called Netanyahu "f–king crazy" over his attacks in Lebanon on June 1, and the New York Post confirmed Trump grilled the Israeli PM directly: "You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
At the G7 Summit in Evian last month, Trump publicly called out Netanyahu over Israeli airstrikes in Beirut that nearly collapsed his memorandum of understanding with Iran. "You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah," Trump told reporters.
Vice President JD Vance drove the point home during a June press briefing, noting that "over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars." Vance's message to Israeli critics of the Iran deal: "The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality."
The backdrop matters. The U.S. launched multiple strikes against Iran in response to hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz before both sides agreed to halt and meet in Doha. Trump told reporters this week the denuclearization talks are "going well." Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon signed a tripartite agreement with the U.S. on June 26 calling for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and demilitarization of Hezbollah.
The Israeli prime minister's office said Netanyahu called Trump Friday to congratulate him on the 250th Independence Day of the United States, adding that "Israel highly appreciates the close bond between the two nations." Appreciation, of course, is cheaper than gratitude when American taxpayers are picking up the tab.
The question isn't whether Trump and Netanyahu get along. It's whether the boss — the American people — ever gets a say in how much of their money goes out the door.
