WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — US President Donald Trump did not push back on British plans to sanction Israeli settlements when he was briefed on the proposal by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a Western official told The Times of Israel, “There was no request to hold off.”
The claim originates from a report by Axios journalist, citing US officials and Western diplomats, and has since been republished by the Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom and JFeed. That distinction matters: nearly every outlet carrying this story is relaying the same original reporting rather than independently confirming it through separate sourcing, so the claim should be treated as credibly sourced but singly sourced, not as multi-outlet verified fact.
According to that reporting, Burnham spoke with Trump by phone earlier in the week, ahead of Tuesday’s public announcement, and informed him of London’s plan to ban imports of goods from West Bank settlements alongside a wider package of sanctions targeting individuals and companies tied to settlement construction. Two sources briefed on the call told Axios that Trump neither objected to the plan nor asked Burnham to change course.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s own public remarks are consistent with that account, without directly confirming the specifics of the call itself. Asked about the British measures on Tuesday, Rubio declined to criticise them. “We heard their arguments as to why,” he said. “We share the goal of stability. We don’t want to see an uptick in violence or tensions in the West Bank in a tenuous time in the region.” He confirmed the US itself would not join the sanctions.
Axios’s own reporting frames the administration’s decision not to intervene as a signal of Washington’s frustration with the Netanyahu government’s West Bank policy specifically, an interpretation offered by that outlet’s sourcing rather than an independently established fact.
The picture is complicated by a separate, more public rift within the US response. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that Britain’s decision amounted to “discrimination against the Jewish people,” and asked why the UK was not similarly sanctioning “North Korea, China, Russia.” The White House distanced itself from those comments, with an official telling Axios they were “not coordinated with the White House” or the State Department, suggesting Huckabee’s public criticism did not reflect the administration’s actual position on the matter.
Sources:
The Times of Israel: Live blog, September 9, 2026
Axios: Trump administration did not oppose UK-led effort to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements
The Jerusalem Post: Trump admin did not push back against UK sanctions on Israeli settlements, officials say
Israel Hayom: Trump didn’t oppose UK’s new sanctions on Israeli settlements
