Out of character, Trump trivializes Netanyahu

TEHRAN (Iran News)  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eyes twinkled, even if he seemed less typically histrionic, as he arrived at the White House for a hastily-arranged meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, their second in just over two months.

Last time he visited, it was barely weeks since Trump had made a comeback to the office, and the Israeli prime minister was the first foreign leader who was meeting with the newly sworn-in president.

As in February, Netanyahu became on Monday the first foreign leader to meet with Trump since the U.S. president introduced steep tariffs against almost all of America’s trade partners, including Israel.

Unlike then, the Israeli prime minister was unpleasantly surprised, patronized, and belittled by Trump. The treatment was extraordinary given that the Israeli leader had been going to great lengths to curry favor with the U.S. president. It also marked a shift from Trump’s last term, when Netanyahu found a more malleable ally at the White House.

Netanyahu’s iter horribilis of course began before he set foot in the United States, when his aircraft reportedly had to take a longer route to avoid the airspace of countries that could enforce an arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister issued by the International Criminal Court for possible crimes against humanity over the war in Gaza.

At the White House, it took a nosedive.

There, to his chagrin, Netanyahu was informed that the United States was going to hold talks with Iran.

A joint press conference by the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister was abruptly canceled, and when the two appeared at the Oval Office for a question-and-answer session with reporters, Netanyahu was “strangely quiet” as Trump spoke, according to The New York Times.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran and they’ve started, it’ll go on Saturday,” the U.S. president claimed.

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with,” he added, referring to potential military strikes against Iranian sites, Israel’s preferred option.

Netanyahu said nothing at that point. Trump, “voluble and dominating, barely let him get a word in,” The New York times wrote.

Just two months earlier, and on the back of what he saw as a triumphant year for Israel, Netanyahu had urged Trump to “finish the job” against Iran by taking out its nuclear facilities.

At the White House on Monday, Trump also refused to commit to removing tariffs of 17% that he has newly imposed on Israel, even though Netanyahu had preemptively canceled Israel’s remaining tariffs on imports from the United States on April 1 and as he promised to Trump that he would eliminate the trade deficit with the United States.

In justifying his refusal to remove the tariffs on Israel, Trump was not specially friendly. “Don’t forget, we help Israel a lot. We give Israel $4 billion a year, that’s a lot,” he said.

During his February visit to the White House, Netanyahu had watched gleefully as Trump looked poised to escalate with Iran, and the Israeli prime minister described the U.S. president as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” Back then, the U.S. president signed a presidential memo to restore “maximum pressure” on Iran, a relic of his first term (2017-2021).

In those four years, Netanyahu often seemed to have Trump’s ear like no other foreign official. Cheered on by the Israeli prime minister, Trump pulled the United States from a multinational deal with Iran, imposed “maximum pressure” on the country, and ordered the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani. If it wasn’t merely one of his public displays of affinity for the U.S. president, Netanyahu had reason to describe Trump in overly friendly terms as the latter took office for a second term.

But, in the span of two months, or perhaps four years, the odds seem to have changed for the Israeli prime minister — at least momentarily. As for his adulation for Trump, all he called the U.S. incumbent at the White House on Monday was “a remarkable friend” of Israel.