US plans Israel embassy move as early as 2019

Bloomberg

The Trump administration accelerated its timetable for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, weighing a plan to retrofit the existing consulate there by the end of 2019 in order to fulfill a key campaign pledge by the president.
Building a new embassy would have taken too long
and is “cost-prohibitive” so “we’re going to retrofit an existing facility,” Steve Goldstein, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said in a phone interview.
He said President Donald Trump was briefed on the plan. But after initially describing the plan as final, Goldstein later said “the decision memo has not been signed, and until it is there won’t be a final determination.”
The president announced in December that the US would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. At the same time, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. That provoked protests from across the Middle East and beyond.