WASHINGTON The Trump administration has formally invoked an exemption that allows the White House to clear $8.1 billion in weapon sales for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates over congressional objections, in a move that could create trouble for the defense industry.
For the last year, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has held up the sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, over concerns of how they will be used as part of the Saudi-led actions against Iranian-backed fighters in Yemen, an operation that has led to a humanitarian crisis in that country.
Now, the administration is pushing through those weapons, as well as a mix of unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft maintenance, using an obscure exemption to circumvent Congress ability to say no to foreign weapon deals.
The Arms Export Control Act contains an exemption to sell weapons to partners in case of an emergency, something designed to speed up the process amid a crisis. In this case, Trump appears to be using the tense situation with Iran based on intelligence reports that have been widely questioned by Democrats, but supported by the Pentagon as a reason to push through the weapons.
Around noon on Friday, Menendez said the administration officially informed the Senate it will use what his office called an unprecedented and legally dubious move to push the weapon sales through, breaking years of tradition where the Senate has a say over whether other nations can buy American defense goods.
In trying to explain this move, the Administration failed to even identify which legal mechanism it thinks it is using, described years of malign Iranian behavior but failed to identify what actually constitutes an emergency today, and critically, failed to explain how these systems, many of which will take years to come online, would immediately benefit either the United States or our allies and thus merit such hasty action, the New Jersey legislator wrote.
On that last point, it could in fact take years for the weapons to go under contract, be produced and then sold. However, there are alternatives the White House could use, particularly for munitions, including giving weapons from U.S. stockpiles to those nations or having governments cut ahead of others on the wait list.
Later in the afternoon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement saying that 22 individual sales would be cleared through the exemption, saying the sales would help the countries deter and defend themselves from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I intend for this determination to be a one-time event, Pompeo wrote, saying the exemption has been used by at least" four previous administrations. This specific measure does not alter our long-standing arms transfer review process with Congress.
Sen. Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who first raised the possibility Trump would use a loophole to push the sales through this week, said the move sets an incredibly dangerous precedent that future presidents can use to sell weapons without a check from Congress."
We have the constitutional duty to declare war and the responsibility to oversee arm sales that contravene our national security interests. If we dont stand up to this abuse of authority, we will permanently box ourselves out of deciding who we should sell weapons to, Murphy added.
Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican who in recent weeks has become a vocal critic of Trump, joined the criticism, tweeting that Trump"is (again) going around Congressthis time to unilaterally approve billions in arms sales, including to the brutal Saudi regime. Congress must reclaim its powers. When will the legislative branch stand up to the executive branch?"
