Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will head to Washington in the coming days to meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and discuss economic and political cooperation, Smotrich’s spokesperson said Thursday.

Smotrich was invited by Bessent in a call two weeks ago, said Smotrich spokesperson Eitan Fuld. They will meet around the weekend of March 8-9.

It would mark the first in-person talks between Smotrich, a fervent settler advocate at the helm of Israel’s settlement planning apparatus, and a Trump administration official — and it could have major implications for US policy toward the settlements, which the international community largely considers illegal.

It will also represent a sharp reversal of a tacit policy by the previous White House to boycott contacts with far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

“We’re strengthening the ties, the working relations,” Fuld said. “There are also professional issues on the agenda.”

Smotrich supports the reoccupation of Gaza, the rebuilding of Jewish settlements that were removed in 2005, and what he describes as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians out of the territory.

He’s coming to the US after President Donald Trump, on his first day in office, canceled sanctions against extremist Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The reversal of the Biden administration’s sanctions set the tone for a presidency that has been more tolerant of Israel’s expansion of settlements and violence toward Palestinians. In Trump’s previous term, he lavished support on Israel, and the Republican has again surrounded himself with aides who back the settlers.

Most recently, Trump has proposed expelling more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza and transforming the strip into a “Riviera.” On Wednesday, he posted an artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social platform, envisioning Gaza as a resort-style destination, including a golden statue of him.

Smotrich has called for Israel to occupy Gaza and annex the West Bank, and he urged Netanyahu to advocate Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank when the prime minister visited Washington earlier this month.

Smotrich maintained a fractured relationship with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which refused to engage with him and sanctioned more than a dozen Israelis who the administration said acted violently toward Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Biden administration also considered leveling sanctions on Smotrich and fellow far-right politician Itamar Ben Gvir, who had been the national security minister, for their role in destabilizing the West Bank, but did not do so by the end of Biden’s term in office.

Ben Gvir and Smotrich were vetted for potential designations, amid mounting revelations that Ben Gvir had directed the police force he oversaw as national security minister not to probe intensifying settler violence, and that Smotrich had used his positions as finance minister and minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of settler affairs to severely weaken the Palestinian Authority while allowing illegal Israeli outposts to mushroom across the West Bank.

A US official told The Times of Israel in December that Biden had chafed at the idea, deeming the sanctioning of ministers from a democratic ally as a step too far.

Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, frequently angered Democratic leaders, particularly by imposing financial measures that weakened the PA, the body that governs semi-autonomous zones of the West Bank.

In October, he signed a one-month extension to an agreement allowing Israeli banks to correspond with Palestinian banks, hours before the terms were slated to expire.

In December, Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a one-year extension of the banking deal after then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and seven of her foreign counterparts sent a letter to Netanyahu expressing concern over the possible collapse of the Palestinian economy if Smotrich failed to renew the agreement.

Representatives from the US Treasury, the White House and the Palestinian Monetary Authority did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.