(AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump, discussing issues including tariffs and the “Iranian threat,” his office said Saturday. The meeting will take place on Monday, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.
The two countries are dealing with a set of extremely thorny issues, including Trump’s shock imposition of 17 percent tariffs on Israeli imports, an elusive search for a ceasefire in Gaza, and mounting concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Netanyahu will meet Trump to “discuss tariffs, efforts to bring back Israeli hostages (from Gaza), Israel-Turkey relations, the Iranian threat, and the fight against the International Criminal Court,” which has accused the Israeli leader of war crimes, his Jerusalem office said in a statement Saturday.
Tariff talks would make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to travel to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a better deal with Trump. Israel had attempted to duck the tariffs imposed on nearly every country by moving preemptively Tuesday — a day before Trump’s big global tariff announcement — to drop all remaining duties on the one percent of American goods still affected by them. But Trump moved ahead with the tariffs, saying the United States had a significant trade deficit with its Mideast ally and top beneficiary of military aid.
Trump had said Thursday that he expected a visit soon from Netanyahu — “maybe even next week” — though the Axios website said Israeli officials and even some in the Trump administration were caught by surprise. Also on the agenda will be stalled efforts to reach a new agreement on a Gaza ceasefire deal and the return by the Hamas militants of the remaining hostages. Israel renewed military operations there last month, ending a short-lived truce.
Trump, meanwhile, has pressed Iran, so far amid few signs of progress, for a new deal on its nuclear program. There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might launch a military strike on Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached. Netanyahu’s US visit, originally expected to take place later this month, appears to have been moved up following the tariff announcement Wednesday, Axios reported. Trump and Netanyahu had spoken by phone on Thursday about Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the possibility of the Washington visit apparently arose at that time.
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