Netanyahu Will Meet Trump in Washington in a Sign of Their Strong Ties
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is set to meet with President Trump at the White House on Monday, according to two White House officials and an Israeli official, in the second such visit by the Israeli leader since the president’s inauguration in January.
Mr. Netanyahu will arrive in Washington after renewing Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza late last month, despite efforts by Mr. Trump’s aides to broker a new truce to stop the fighting there and to free more hostages. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In addition to the Gaza war, the two leaders are likely to touch on Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs, which include a 17 percent markup on Israeli exports to the United States. Mr. Netanyahu had sought to avert the tariffs on the eve of Mr. Trump’s announcement by voiding Israeli customs duties on American products — seemingly to no avail.
Still, Mr. Netanyahu’s expected visit underscores how the Israeli leader has seen his diplomatic standing in Washington shift since Mr. Trump’s return to power in January. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose relationship with Mr. Netanyahu grew increasingly fraught as the Gaza war wore on, did not meet him in the Oval Office until 2024.
Mr. Trump has aligned his Middle East policy to especially benefit Israel and has left little daylight between himself and Mr. Netanyahu. When he entered office for his second term, Mr. Trump made the Israeli prime minister the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House.
A spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu did not respond to a request for comment on the visit. The Israeli prime minister has been in Hungary on a state visit, where he met with the country’s leader, Viktor Orban.
During Mr. Netanyahu’s last trip, Mr. Trump made clear he was recommitted to brokering a new diplomatic deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a primary goal for both leaders. But Mr. Trump appeared to drop support for a Palestinian state, despite pressure from the Saudis.
Mr. Trump also described a vision for Gaza that involved a U.S. takeover and the mass exit of Palestinians from the enclave. Experts said the seemingly off-the-cuff proposal to remove Palestinians likely violated international law. It was also widely rejected by Arab nations. Mr. Netanyahu has since called for “voluntary emigration” by Gazans, which critics have denounced as effectively forced displacement.
Mr. Trump also canceled sanctions imposed by Mr. Biden on violent West Bank settlers and released weapons to Israel held up by the former president.
Israeli forces have been steadily bombarding Gaza and advancing deeper into the enclave since the war resumed in late March. Israel has also barred aid from entering Gaza for about a month, in an apparent attempt to pressure Hamas, leading to fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis for Gazans.
The Trump administration has blamed Hamas for the cease-fire’s collapse. The truce — which began just before Mr. Trump’s January inauguration — held for about two months before Israel decisively ended it with a deadly bombardment on March 18.
Hamas has accused Israel of breaking the cease-fire, which Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, helped broker. The agreement had secured an initial six-week truce for both sides to negotiate a comprehensive deal to free the remaining hostages and end the war, which Israel refused to countenance without an end to Hamas’s rule there.
More than 50,000 Gazans have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, including more than 1,000 since the end of the truce in late March, according to the Gaza health ministry. Those figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.