Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Trump Slashes $200M In Economic Aid To Palestinians

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration cut funding to the Palestinians by $200 million, citing Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

“At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer,” a State Department official said Friday in an email to JTA.

“As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in FY2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza. Those funds will now address high-priority projects elsewhere,” the official said. “This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza’s citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation.”

It’s not clear what the cuts would mean for overall funding, although the figure suggested they would be far-reaching. Congress has in the past mandated $400-$500 million in funding for the Palestinians, but the United States already cuts back funding commensurate with payments the Palestinian Authority pays to the families of Palestinians who have attacked Israelis.

Additionally, a law Trump signed this year mandates massive cuts because of those payments to Palestinians who attack Israelis; it’s not clear if the cuts announced Friday were taken because of that law, called the Taylor Force Act and named for an American murdered in 2016 in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Tel Aviv.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.