Smotrich heads to US as Trump expected to make statement on West Bank annexation
Far-right finance minister says he’ll meet with US officials, including counterpart Scott Bessent, to emphasize ‘clear need for American support’ in war against terror
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday that he was making a brief visit to the United States to “strengthen economic cooperation” and “deepen the strategic alliance between our two countries,” ahead of an expected announcement by US President Donald Trump on the future of the West Bank.
Writing on X, Smotrich said he had taken off overnight and would meet with US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“I will also emphasize in my meetings Israel’s determined stance in the fight against terror and the need for clear American support,” said the far-right minister, who has threatened to topple the government should Israel withdraw from Gaza as part of a truce-hostage deal.
Trump, whose pressure before taking office helped seal the deal that went into effect in January, has said he is “fine” with the resumption of hostilities in Gaza. The White House has also backed Israel’s cessation of humanitarian aid to the Strip following Hamas’s rejection of a US-backed Israeli offer to extend the deal’s first phase rather than proceed to the second, which would require the IDF to withdraw from Gaza.
Smotrich, who supports Israeli annexation of the West Bank, arrived in the US as Trump was expected to say whether his White House would back such a move.
Asked about annexation on February 5, Trump had said he would be “making an announcement” on the matter in about four weeks’ time. On Wednesday, precisely four weeks will have passed.
המראתי הלילה לביקור בזק בארצות הברית, שם אפגש עם גורמי ממשל, ובראשם מזכיר האוצר האמריקאי, סקוט בסנט.
מטרת הביקור היא לחזק את שיתוף הפעולה הכלכלי בין ישראל לארצות הברית, לקדם יוזמות כלכליות משותפות, ולהעמיק את הברית האסטרטגית בין המדינות.
בנוסף, אדגיש בפגישותיי את עמדתה הנחושה… pic.twitter.com/vcZ5HGbL2v
— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) March 4, 2025
A day earlier, on February 4, Trump held a joint press conference at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the US president announced his plan to take over Gaza and permanently oust its residents as part of the Strip’s reconstruction.
Netanyahu’s government, including Smotrich, has applauded the plan. An Egyptian counterproposal to Trump’s plan is set to be discussed at the Arab League summit in Cairo on Tuesday.
Israel has controlled the West Bank since 1967, and its presence there is considered illegal by much of the international community. In 2019, Trump broke with Washington’s long-standing designation of West Bank settlements as illegal.
In 2020, late into his first term, Trump offered a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. While Netanyahu expressed some interest in the idea, Smotrich, then the transportation minister, rejected it outright. The proposal never took off, with the Palestinian Authority having also rejected it.
During the current war in Gaza, Smotrich, head of the pro-settler Religious Zionism party, has called for the West Bank-based PA to be abolished, accusing it of support for terrorism.
Smotrich has also touted a “mega-dramatic” plan to take over the West Bank, and secured government recognition for several illegal settlements in an apparent exchange in which he unfroze tax funds he had withheld from the PA.
In a video message to a right-wing rally last week, Smotrich also called for Israel to occupy and resettle Gaza. Israel had dismantled settlements in the Strip in 2005 as part of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement plan.
Despite opposing the Gaza ceasefire, Smotrich, unlike his erstwhile partner MK Itamar Ben Gvir, did not quit the government after it approved the deal’s first phase, which saw Hamas release 33 women, children, civilian men over 50 and those deemed “humanitarian cases.”
The finance minister has threatened to quit if the second phase goes forward and Israel pulls out of the Strip.
Netanyahu has largely held off on negotiating the second phase, which would see Hamas release 24 captives still believed to be alive — all of them young men abducted on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
AFP contributed to this report.
