A news conference between Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to take place on Monday has been cancelled, the White House has said.
Officials have said the decision was made because the two leaders had “two back-to-back media availabilities (the greeting in the Oval Office and the formal news conference), and they wanted to streamline things”.
There will instead be “one big, beautiful news conference” in the Oval Office, the officials added.
A much smaller number of approved reporters will be at the Oval Office than would have been at the now-cancelled news conference.
It comes as President Trump is under pressure over his tariffs policy which has sparked a meltdown in the global markets, and Mr Netanyahu faces questions over the killing of 15 aid workers by Israeli troops in Gaza.
Whether Mr Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Tariffs latest: Follow live updates
Mr Netanyahu is the first world leader to visit Mr Trump since he unleashed levies on countries across the world.
The two leaders were seen greeting each other with a firm handshake outside the White House ahead of talks on Monday.
The US president ignored shouted questions from reporters about the tumbling global markets and whether he would lift tariffs on Israel.
Image: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands outside the White House. Pic: AP
Mr Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of the hastily organised Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza and tensions with Iran.
They will also discuss Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year.
Mr Trump in February signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC over its investigations of Israel.
Shortly after arriving in Washington on Sunday evening, Mr Netanyahu met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jameson Greer, to discuss tariffs.
In a pre-emptive move last week, Israel announced that it was removing all tariffs on goods from the US, mostly on imported food and agricultural products, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
But the apparent tactic failed, and with a 17% rate, Israel was just one of dozens of countries that were slapped with tariffs on Mr Trump’s so-called Liberation Day the following day.
Ahead of his meeting with Mr Trump, the Israeli prime minister met Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, on Monday.
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1:42 Trump’s tariffs: What you need to know
The US president and Mr Netanyahu are expected to discuss Israel’s hoped-for annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians want as the heart of their future independent state.
Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations, said he expected Mr Trump to use the tariffs as leverage to force concessions from Mr Netanyahu.
In Israel’s case, those concessions might not be economic.
Mr Trump may pressure Mr Netanyahu to move towards ending the war in Gaza – at the very least through some interim truce with Hamas that would pause the fighting and free more hostages.
Mr Gilboa said Mr Trump is hoping to return from his first overseas trip – expected next month to Saudi Arabia – with some movement on a deal to normalise relations with Israel, which would likely require significant Israeli concessions on Gaza.
If he does manage to move toward bolstering ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that would act as a regional diplomatic counterweight to pressure Iran, against which Mr Trump has threatened new sanctions and suggested military action over its nuclear programme.
