H.R.7540 & S.3855 - United States-Israel FUTURES Act of 2026
H.R. 7540 was introduced February 12, 2026 by Representative Ronny Jackson (R-TX-13). It is currently pending before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, and has 1 co-sponsor on a bipartisan basis.
S. 3855 was introduced February 12, 2026 by Senator Ted Budd (R-NC). It is currently pending before the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and has 1 co-sponsor on a bipartisan basis.
Related legislation: H.R. 1229 and S. 554
Bill Summary: H.R.7540 and S. 3855 establishes a new U.S. Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative aimed at accelerating joint research, development, and integration of Israeli origin and jointly developed defense technologies into U.S. military systems and programs of record. It directs the Department of Defense to formalize deeper cooperation and integration across emerging and existing domains, including counter-drone systems, missile and air defense, quantum computing, AI and autonomous systems, cyber and electronic warfare, directed energy, and defense industrial base co-production, while facilitating pathways from R&D into procurement. The bill authorizes $150 million annually from FY2027-FY2029, requires regular reporting to Congress on progress and technology transitions, and emphasizes rapid adoption of Israeli defense innovations to strengthen U.S. military capabilities and technological supremacy.
Context: As political pressure builds to reduce U.S. military assistance to Israel, this Bill epitomizes the alternative framework being constructed by the Israel-First lobby: embedding U.S. aid to Israel within America’s own defense industrial base in order to make it harder for Congress to address.
Emerging defense technologies, including AI and quantum, involve the “crown jewels” of U.S. future defense capabilities, and access to U.S. research on such technologies is strictly limited to trusted allies (such as the UK and Australia under AUKUS Pillar 2). Israel is a leading exporter of offensive cyber tools that have been used to target U.S. citizens, including U.S. Government officials. Israel has previously been implicated in cases involving unauthorized technology transfer and has been identified by U.S. officials and analysts as posing persistent counterintelligence risks, and maintaining a robust technological espionage program. Moreover, many of Israel’s military technologies have been tested against Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, most notoriously in the field of AI. In Gaza, the Israeli military AI-enabled targeting, surveillance, and decision-support systems have been used extensively in ways that human rights organizations and UN experts have linked to war crimes, while the bill relies primarily on general assurances in its reporting mechanisms to protect sensitive technology rather than binding counterintelligence or human rights safeguards.
It is important to note that H.R.7540 and S. 3855 are similar to H.R. 1229 and S. 554 in their goals to deepen the relationship between the United States and Israel. However, H.R.7540 and S.3855 go further by explicitly framing integration as a mechanism for the United States to benefit from Israeli-origin technologies, without addressing the human rights, legal, and counterintelligence risks raised by deeper technological entanglement - as well as the competitive harm to U.S. industry. Although the funding authorized by H.R.7540 and S.3855 is not structured as Foreign Military Financing, it nonetheless represents a substantial expansion of U.S. defense support and integration beyond the scope and intent of the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, at a moment when U.S. policymakers, have publicly questioned whether continued expansion of such support serves U.S. interests. Notably, even senior Republican lawmakers traditionally supportive of expansive U.S. military assistance to Israel have recently argued that U.S. policy should move toward reducing rather than deepening long-term security assistance.
American Values Analysis: By building future U.S. defense capabilities and deepening U.S. defense integration on the back of technologies tested against an occupied people and linked to war crimes, these bills normalize and could risk implicating the United States in practices that undermine core American commitments to human rights, civilian protection, and the rule of law.
American Interest Analysis: Deepening defense cooperation with Israel in emerging defense technologies risks exposing sensitive U.S. military capabilities to economic espionage and diversion to adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China. The program also further associates the United States with the misuse of defense technologies by Israel, and could implicate U.S. officials and corporations in future war crimes and other violations of international law, as well as the ongoing illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories which has been a test-bed for many of the technologies that would be the subject of these research and development programs.
A New Policy’s Recommendation: OPPOSE
A New Policy strongly opposes H.R.7540 and S.3855 because the purpose of the bills is to avoid the scrutiny and transparency afforded through the current grant assistance to Israel in favor of a mechanism designed to implant Israel’s defense and intelligence establishments into the most sensitive and basic levels of America’s own defense technology ecosystem. This approach exposes sensitive U.S. capabilities to counterintelligence risk, normalizes technologies developed in contexts of occupation and civilian harm, deepens U.S. legal and reputational exposure without clear strategic necessity, and aims to hide continuing U.S. military support to Israel from Congressional and public transparency.
For more information please contact: Josh Paul, info@anewpolicy.org, (202) 770-0055
