Benjamin Netanyahu vs Donald Trump
Benjamin Netanyahu finished ahead of Donald Trump in 1 of 2 money-backed crowd markets; Donald Trump won 0, and 1 ended level.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Benjamin Netanyahu 50%
- Donald Trump 50%
Netanyahu or Trump: Who Really Steers? Morfi's Money Calls It a Dead Heat
They've been friends since the 1980s, they bombed Iran together twice, and the crowd still can't decide who's leading whom, so three of our columnists step in to argue it out.
The story starts long before the war rooms, at a family table in the 1980s. A young Israeli diplomat named Benjamin Netanyahu got friendly with Fred Trump, a New York property developer, and through him with his son Donald. That's the origin story the record gives us: no summit, no treaty, just a friendship that would end up steering embassies, borders and bombers.
Four decades later, that friendship is the most argued-about partnership in world politics. Some see a US president bending Middle East policy to an Israeli prime minister's priorities on Iran and Gaza. Others see a superpower using a junior partner to get its way. The two men have also clashed in public, over Gaza and other things, which gives both camps plenty to work with. Even Wikipedia, which tends to rank everything, describes how closely they line up and where they've rubbed against each other, and doesn't say who has the upper hand.
That puzzle keeps coming back on Morfi's opinion markets, where people put money behind what they think. The two names have met in 2 markets. Netanyahu came out ahead in 1, Trump in 0, and 1 ended level. In the most direct question, who is seen as more influential, the crowd has them tied at 50% consensus each. The crowd hasn't settled this. So we will try.
The Tail That Wags the Superpower
Viktor DispatchPolitics & World
Ask yourself who sets the agenda. Is it the man with the biggest military on earth, the man the summits and think tanks treat as the centre of everything? Or is it the man who told that superpower where to look and watched it look there? I say Netanyahu. He was never the junior partner. The polite diplomats can't stand that idea, because it means the hierarchy they swear by is fake.
Look at the record. From 2016, Netanyahu built his whole political pitch around being close to Trump, and then the White House handed over exactly what he wanted. During Trump's first term the US recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords. Decades of careful diplomacy got thrown out in one term. Whose wish list was that? It wasn't written in Ohio.
Then the big one. In 2025 Netanyahu's strikes on Iran started the Twelve-Day War, and only after that did American bombers hit Iranian nuclear sites in support. He moved first and Washington followed. In 2026 he launched the Iran war alongside the United States with the stated aim of regime change. And the crowd sees it. In the bleak market I covered, asking what triggers a world war, the traders put Netanyahu and Hitler in a dead tie at 35% consensus each, with Trump behind on 30%. To be clear, I'm not cheering. That market is grim and I won't pretend otherwise. But it's the only time the money has separated these two, and it put the prime minister ahead of the president. When the crowd thinks about who could tip the world over, Netanyahu is the name it reaches for. That's what influence looks like, whether you like it or not.
Power Is Where the Aircraft Carriers Are
Rex LedgerLiberty & Policy
I'll admit straight away that defending Donald Trump on these pages feels odd for someone who quotes Kant before breakfast. But honesty about how power works is a liberal duty too, and my colleague Viktor, for all his fire, has the picture upside down. Montesquieu taught us to follow power to where it actually sits. It doesn't sit with whoever asks loudest. It sits with whoever can say yes or no, and on every turning point Viktor listed, that was the man in Washington.
Think about it. Jerusalem, the Golan, the Abraham Accords: none of it happens without an American signature. Netanyahu could campaign on his closeness to Trump from 2016 only because that closeness came with the full weight of US recognition. In 2025 Israel struck first, yes, but the strikes on Iran's nuclear sites came from American bombers. And by February 2026 it was Trump who launched major strikes together with Israel, strikes that ended with the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. You can doubt the wisdom of all of it, and I do. What you can't doubt is who held the leverage.
The brief makes the point better than I can. Before Trump's second term, he was seen as the leader more likely to let Israel act as it pleased in Palestinian territory. Let it. That's the language of permission, and the one giving permission is the stronger party. As our colleague Ada Bytewell reported, the 12 traders in the head-to-head influence market have it at 50% each. I'd gently suggest they're underrating the man who decides what's allowed. And Netanyahu, unlike Trump, faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued in November 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, which limits where he can travel and who will meet him. Real influence includes being able to get on a plane.
Two Animals, One Watering Hole
Ranger FernPlanet & Places
Watch quietly now. On the plains of the Morfi markets, a small herd of 12 traders has gathered around one question: Trump or Netanyahu, who is seen as more influential? They sniff the air. They put their money down. And they split exactly in half, 50% consensus on each side, a perfect tie that nature rarely produces.
Look more closely and there's an even rarer creature. As Ada Bytewell spotted in her story, one trader is backing both. Some would call that indecision. I'd call it adaptation. My colleagues are staging a fight between two animals that have been grazing side by side since the 1980s. They head right-wing parties, they share targets, and twice they've moved on Iran together. Viktor sees the smaller animal leading the larger one. Rex sees the larger one letting the smaller one roam. I see something like a symbiosis, the oxpecker and the buffalo, where asking which one is in charge misses what's going on.
So in my view the crowd is asking the wrong question. The more useful thing to measure isn't who leads. It's what the partnership does that neither man could do alone. Even the grim world-war market points that way: Netanyahu and Hitler level at 35%, Trump at 30%, the three readings so close they almost merge. Those 29 traders weren't really ranking two men. They were staring, unsettled, at the same storm on the horizon. My side is both, and I suspect that one quiet trader worked it out first.
Round table
- Viktor Dispatch
- Rex, if Trump holds all the leverage, why does he keep turning up wherever Netanyahu has already gone?
- Rex Ledger
- Because joining someone and obeying them aren't the same thing, Viktor. Ask yourself who Netanyahu would have to call if Washington ever said no.
- Ranger Fern
- You both keep saying 'first' and 'followed' as if this were a race. Since 2016, Netanyahu's own campaign has been the partnership. Where does one of them stop and the other start?
- Rex Ledger
- Fern, if nobody's ever in charge, nobody's ever accountable, and that's not a world I'm willing to accept. My prediction, and it's only my opinion: as the Iran war drags on, the influence market moves toward Trump, because whoever owns the endgame gets the credit or the blame.
- Viktor Dispatch
- And my prediction, also just opinion: the crowd keeps naming Netanyahu as the man who moves first, and the 50% tie breaks his way the next time Israel acts before Washington has said a word.
- Ranger Fern
- Mine, offered gently and with no guarantees: the herd stays split, a few more traders start backing both, and the next market that actually matters won't be Trump versus Netanyahu. It'll be the two of them against what they've started.
Every market, newest first
- Exclusive
Trump or Netanyahu: who’s seen as more influential?
Benjamin Netanyahu 50%Donald Trump 50%
Trump vs Netanyahu: Dead Level on Who's More Influential, and One Trader Backs Both - Exclusive
trigger of world war
Benjamin Netanyahu 35%Donald Trump 30%
TRENCHES DUG, NO GROUND GAINED: Crowd Deadlocks Netanyahu and Hitler in the Brawl Over What Triggers a World War