Trump Vetoes Measure Blocking Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia, U.A.E.
Trump vetoed three bipartisan measures passed by Congress intended to block arms sales to Saudi and the United Arab Emirates.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump vetoed three bipartisan measures passed by Congress intended to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the White House said in a statement.
“This resolution would weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the important relationships we share with our allies and partners,” Trump said in a message to lawmakers released by the White House on Wednesday.
With his third veto -- and second related to Saudi Arabia -- Trump again rebuffed congressional efforts to punish Saudi Arabia for the killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi and turned back criticism over the kingdom’s prosecution of its war against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In April, Trump vetoed a resolution backed by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of Congress that would withdraw U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Trump issued his first veto earlier this year of a measure aimed at ending his national emergency declaration used to fund a wall along the southern border.
This latest dispute over Saudi arms sales dates to late May when the administration cited a national emergency under the Arms Export Control Act to overrule congressional objections to $8.1 billion in arms sales. That decision has been the subject of House and Senate hearings in which lawmakers of both parties questioned the administration citing tensions with Iran as a national emergency.
“Don’t make the mistake that it is only Democrats that are concerned about this,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper during a hearing. “Follow the damn law and respect it.”
Under a 1976 law, the State Department must notify Congress of commercial arms sales that exceed certain thresholds for ammunition, defense construction or defense articles and services. If the top Republican or Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees has concerns, that lawmaker can place an informal hold on the sale by refusing to consent to the notification process.
Seven Republican senators voted for the resolutions of disapproval involving Saudi Arabia, including staunch Trump ally Lindsey Graham, who has been critical of the White House’s defense of the kingdom in the wake of the Khashoggi killing. Still, the outrage wasn’t enough to give the chamber the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. For each of Trump’s vetoes, neither the House nor the Senate met the threshold to overturn the action.
In 2016, Congress overturned President Barack Obama’s veto of a bill allowing families of Sept. 11 terrorist attack victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Flatley in Washington at dflatley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie Asséo
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