In a move predicted earlier this week by members of Congress, President Trump has declared a “national emergency” for the sole reason of circumventing Congressional restrictions on arms sales, and using it to rush shipments of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Under the Arms Export Control Act, Congress is supposed to get a 30 day
notice ahead of any sales, and can then block shipments. Concerns about
war crimes in Yemen mean Saudi arms would be likely to face some effort
to block them.
But the law has a loophole in it, which allows the president to declare
an “emergency” of any sort he wants, with no oversight on that
declaration, and then send the arms over without Congressional
notification.
This is a notoriously cheap way to circumvent Congress on arms exports,
but several Senators said they expected Trump to make such a move as
soon as next week. It appears he decided to get out in front of that
move with a declaration on Friday going into the holiday weekend.
Officially, the “national emergency” is tensions with Iran, though
several in Congress have pointed out that the US has had nonstop
tensions with Iran for decades, and that’s not a reason to suddenly
declare a new emergency.
Trump Declares Fake Emergency to Sell Arms to Saudis and UAE
Declaration allows sales to bypass Congressional objections
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
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