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President Donald Trump isn’t mincing words when it comes to his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ahead of a potential eighth face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Trump returned to the Oval Office, the president made his position crystal clear: “He knows who the boss is.”
The comment came during a phone interview with Axios on Saturday, as tensions between the U.S. and Israel continue to simmer following recent military flare-ups. This would mark the first meeting between Trump and Netanyahu since their dramatic Situation Room encounter in February, when Netanyahu reportedly pushed for a joint war against Iran.
The timing couldn’t be more delicate. The U.S. and Iran only recently agreed to halt strikes and meet in Doha after American forces launched multiple attacks against Iranian targets. Trump has been walking a tightrope—projecting strength while pursuing what he calls “denuclearization” diplomacy. “We hit them very hard for three nights, as you know, but we’re getting along very well,” Trump told reporters earlier this week.
But it’s Netanyahu’s actions in Lebanon that have drawn Trump’s sharpest rebuke. At the G7 Summit in France last month, the president publicly called out the Israeli leader for strikes on Beirut that nearly torpedoed the Iran agreement. “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you,” Trump said, making it clear he wasn’t pleased with the timing—just hours before the Iran deal was set to be signed.
The message is unmistakable: America First isn’t just a campaign slogan—it’s the operating principle of this administration’s foreign policy. While previous administrations might have given Israel carte blanche to act as it pleased in the region, Trump is drawing lines. He’s pro-Israel, but he’s also pro-stability, and he’s not afraid to remind allies that American interests come first.
An Israeli official suggested the meeting might not happen next week due to Trump’s upcoming NATO summit trip to Turkey on July 7-8, pushing the potential sit-down to the following week. Netanyahu’s office confirmed the prime minister called Trump on Friday to congratulate him on America’s 250th Independence Day—a diplomatic nicety that likely won’t smooth over the underlying friction between these two strong-willed leaders.
For conservative Americans watching this dynamic unfold, there’s something refreshing about a president who treats allies as partners rather than patrons. Trump isn’t abandoning Israel—far from it. But he’s demanding respect for American leadership and American priorities. In a world where too many of our so-called allies have taken U.S. support for granted, maybe it’s time they all remembered who the boss is.
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