https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/06/jacob-hornberger/terminate-all-foreign-aid-to-israel-immediately-and-permanently/

By Jacob G. Hornberger
The Future of Freedom Foundation
June 23, 2026

Saddled with defending President Trump’s “peace agreement” with Iran, Vice President J.D. Vance is lashing out at Israeli officials who are criticizing and condemning the agreement. He stated, “My message to them would be twofold. No 1: Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world ‌who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this ‌moment in time. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left ‌in the entire world.”

According to an article in The Guardian, Vance “said he would also remind those cabinet members that two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected Israel ‘have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.’” The article points out that the “U.S. provides Israel with roughly $4 billion in military assistance a year, but the two countries are negotiating a new aid agreement.”

Among the best things that Trump and Vance could ever do is to terminate all negotiations for that new aid agreement for Israel and instead announce an immediate and permanent end to all foreign aid to Israel and, for that matter, to every other nation in the world. No, not because Israeli officials are criticizing and condemning Trump’s and Vance’s “peace agreement” with Iran but because foreign aid is a morally bankrupt policy of the U.S. government.

Why in the world should the American people be forced, through their tax system, to fund a government that they might not wish to fund if they were free to decide what to do with their own money? Where is the morality in such a program? Where is the justice in such a program? How is such a program reconcilable with the principles of liberty?

It’s important to keep in mind that U.S. foreign aid formed no part of America’s governmental system for more than 100 years. There are three reasons for that:

1. The Constitution doesn’t authorize foreign aid.

2. There was no income tax. For more than 100 years, Americans were free to keep everything they earned, and there was nothing the federal government could do about.

3. There were no welfare programs by which Americans were forced to share a portion of their earnings with others, either domestically or to foreign regimes in the form of foreign aid.

Make no mistake about it: Foreign aid is nothing more than a standard welfare program, albeit one for foreign governmental officials, some of whom line their personal pockets with it. Foreign aid uses the income-tax system, which is enforced by the tyrannical IRS, to take money from people to whom it belongs and give it to government officials in foreign countries.

The purpose of this foreign welfare? No, not to help the poor, needy, and disadvantaged. It’s to maintain influence and control over foreign regimes. U.S. officials learned a long time ago that if they can just get people dependent on the U.S. dole, the recipients will submissively defer to the authority of the U.S. government in order to keep the dole flowing, much like a heroin addict will do anything to keep a supply of heroin flowing into his veins.

Why do so many Americans continue to support the concept of foreign aid? After all, lots of Americans are struggling financially with loads of taxation, debt, healthcare costs, grocery expenses, gasoline prices, and much more. With America’s policy of perpetual war, combined with Trump’s massive tariff spree, life has become even more painful for many Americans.

So, why do so many of these Americans support a program in which their money is taken from them to fund the Israeli government and other governments? How about instead a system in which Americans keep 100 percent of their earnings and decide for themselves what to do with their own money? If people wish to donate a portion of their earnings to the Israeli government or to anyone else, great! That’s, in fact, what America’s founding system was all about. That’s how our American ancestors lived for more than 100 years. We should keep that in mind when we celebrate the Fourth of July.

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