US President Donald Trump has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could visit the White House as early as next week, saying the Israeli leader had requested the meeting. Trump made the remarks in a brief telephone interview with the news outlet Axios on Saturday, July 5, adding a pointed assertion of authority: "We get along very good. [Netanyahu] knows who the boss is." Netanyahu's office confirmed that the two leaders had spoken by phone and agreed to meet "soon" in the United States.
The timing of any visit remains fluid. Trump indicated the meeting could follow his attendance at the annual NATO summit, held this year in Ankara, Türkiye, on July 7 and 8. An Israeli official cautioned that next week may be too soon given Trump's travel schedule, suggesting the visit could slip to the week after. Should Netanyahu arrive in Washington this month, it would be his seventh trip to the US since Trump returned to office in January 2025 — more official visits than any other world leader during that period.
The prospective meeting comes against a backdrop of publicly visible friction between the two longtime allies. The United States and Israel jointly launched military strikes against Iran beginning on February 28, a conflict that drew widespread international condemnation as an unprovoked act of aggression and sparked domestic criticism of Trump for deploying troops without congressional approval. A ceasefire framework and a 14-point memorandum of understanding signed with Iran on June 17 have since been undermined by continued Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, which have prompted Tehran to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which a significant share of global oil trade passes. Trump, visibly frustrated, confirmed in early June that he had called Netanyahu "f***ing crazy" over the Lebanon strikes.
Despite the tensions, Trump has stressed that the underlying relationship remains intact. The US was the first country to recognise the State of Israel in 1948, and Israel has since become the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since the Second World War. The two countries' stated rationale for the Iran conflict — preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon — continues to be rejected by Iran, which maintains its uranium enrichment programme serves civilian energy purposes only.
The proposed visit carries broader significance as Trump's Republican Party looks toward November's midterm congressional elections. A late-June Quinnipiac University poll found that 60 percent of US voters considered the war against Iran "not worth it", and 48 percent said the US is too supportive of Israel — figures that have tracked with a decline in Trump's approval ratings. How the White House navigates its alliance with Israel while seeking to consolidate a fragile peace with Iran is likely to dominate any agenda between the two leaders.