Analysis Norway's FM: 'Very mild' response a sign sympathy declining

Trump shows apathy about UK-led settlement sanctions, ignoring Israel request for action

Israel asked US to intervene on its behalf, and Rubio indicated response could come, but 2 weeks have passed and Trump is still claiming he's not entirely familiar with British decision

By Jacob Magid
  • Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
 Today, 8:28 am
Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham, left, meets with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, in New York City, September 22, 2026. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK — Just a few hours had passed since UK Foreign Minister Ed Miliband unveiled a major sanctions regime against Israeli settlements on September 8, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s response appeared relatively reserved.

Rubio has led the administration’s policy targeting the International Criminal Court, which has included more sanctions against Hague figures involved in cases against Israel than those involved in trying to prosecute American troops.

But on the UK decision to outlaw trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank — which 11 other Western countries immediately echoed — Rubio expressed far more restraint.

“Obviously, we’re not going to do what the UK did… [but] we don’t have any announcements. The president has expressed in the past [that] we don’t want to see anything destabilizing going on right now in the West Bank with so much going on in the region. We think it has implications on our ability to make progress with regards to Gaza,” Rubio told reporters, utilizing the administration’s vague talking point against settler violence in the West Bank.

The top US diplomat was then pressed on US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s suggestion that the UK would face significant consequences from Washington over the decision to outlaw trade with Israeli settlements, but Rubio made no indication that the administration’s policy would actually go that far.

“The president has not commented on this. We were made aware that they were going to make this decision. We heard their arguments as to why… But beyond that… as of this moment, we don’t have any further comment on the UK decision,” Rubio said.

Rubio was outside of Washington and kicking off a trip to Latin America, which could have explained his hesitance.

He also didn’t rule out a more forceful response, just that one wasn’t ready “as of this moment.”

The next day, US President Donald Trump was asked about the UK decision, and he acted as if he only heard about it after the fact.

“I’ll be speaking to Israel, I’ll be speaking to them, and I’ll find out what’s their thinking,” he said. “I understand exactly what’s going on, but I want to find out why, all of a sudden, has that happened.”

But Rubio had just admitted that the UK briefed the US ahead of time, and a Western official told The Times of Israel that the notice came in the form of a phone call between Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Trump, during which the latter did not push back on the British initiative.

Miliband also publicly laid out what led his government to announce the sanctions on Tuesday, highlighting unchecked settler violence as well as Israel’s recent advancement of the highly controversial E1 settlement construction project.

Israel still fumed over the sanctions, and in the days following the announcement, a request was made by Jerusalem for Washington to intervene on its behalf, according to an Israeli official, who said Jerusalem wanted to prevent the dozen Western countries from quickly implementing their sanctions plans.

But two weeks have gone by since the UK announcement, and no US intervention has come.

A US official told the Axios news site that Huckabee’s threat of repercussions was not coordinated with the White House or the State Department, suggesting that it did not represent the administration’s policy on the matter.

What’s more, Trump is still insisting that he is unfamiliar with what Miliband announced.

“I don’t know about the move. Do you know about the move?” Trump asked UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham when asked about the sanctions package during a Tuesday meeting on the UN General Assembly sidelines.

Shortly after his sit-down with Burnham, Trump hosted a roundtable with representatives from almost every other Middle Eastern country except for Israel and Iran. In his speech before the UN General Assembly, he mentioned Israel only once in passing, even as he boasted of the military actions against Iran, which were taken together with the Jewish state.

Trump, for now, appears interested in getting off on the right foot in his relationship with the new British premier, and doesn’t want to break with London on an issue that doesn’t directly impact US interests.

The feigned ignorance from Trump also comes amid what a US official acknowledged has been mounting frustration in Washington over Jerusalem’s failure to rein in rampant settler violence in the West Bank and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan for Hamas.

That frustration hasn’t translated into public condemnations of Israel, but that doesn’t mean Trump is prepared to intervene on its behalf, especially when the policy in question is so roundly unpopular on the international stage.

“The US reaction was very mild,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, whose country was one of the 11 that followed the UK in committing to restrict trade to the settlements.

Speaking to The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Eide argued that former US president Joe Biden’s administration would have taken a more aggressive action against countries sanctioning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Trump’s non-response is “a sign that sympathy is on its way down,” the Norwegian diplomat said.

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