Vice President JD Vance reiterated on Friday that the United States has no plan to recognize a Palestinian state.
Speaking to reporters during his visit to the United Kingdom alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Vance contrasted the Trump administration’s position with that of his host country.
“The United Kingdom is going to make its decision,” he said. “We have no plans to recognize a Palestinian state. I don’t know what it would mean to recognize a Palestinian state given the lack of a functional government there.”
NEW: JD Vance says there is no plan for the U.S. to recognize a Palestinian state. He adds that the Palestinians have “no functional government.” pic.twitter.com/ihcT3Hl8Ru
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) August 8, 2025
Vance’s comment comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an ultimatum last week to recognize a “state of Palestine” in September if Israel does not meet certain conditions, including agreeing to a ceasefire and ending the conflict in Gaza.
Starmer laid out several conditions, including ending the “appalling situation in Gaza,” agreeing to a ceasefire, committing to “a long-term sustainable peace,” reviving the prospect of a two-state solution, and not annexing areas in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, fired back, pointing out that Israel has agreed several times to ceasefires which Hamas typically rejects.
“Israel has already agreed many times to a ceasefire,” Danon said. “No virtual recognition and no UN decision will change the basic fact that there are those who fight extremist forces, and there are those who bow their heads and ignore them.”
Vance also emphasized the need for Hamas to be eradicated in order to create peace in the region.
“We want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again and we think that has to come with the eradication of Hamas,” the vice president said.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel intends to fully occupy the Gaza Strip to defeat Hamas and help an Arab civilian government take its place.
“We intend to in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free in Gaza, and to pass it to civilian governance that is not Hamas or anyone advocating for the destruction of Israel,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.
The announcement comes after Hamas tanked ceasefire negotiations last month, leading to President Donald Trump saying the terror group “wants to die.”
Israel put a deadline of October 7 — the second anniversary of Hamas’s massacre of Israeli civilians — to fully occupy Gaza City, where more than 1 million Gazans are currently sheltering.
Vance added that the United States is working to resolve “the humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
“The president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza so we want to make sure that we solve that problem,” Vance said. “Obviously it’s not an easy problem to solve or it would’ve already been dealt with.”
The Trump administration has led a significant effort to deliver food to Gazans through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which aims to provide humanitarian aid directly to Gazan civilians while preventing Hamas from intercepting supplies — a challenge that has persisted since the war began. As of Thursday, the GHF has delivered 109,540,602 meals since beginning operations on May 26.