Directly challenging US President Donald Trump’s use of executive power, Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate are banding together to introduce more than a dozen resolutions aimed at blocking the Trump administration’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The maneuver amounts to a remarkable display of bipartisan pushback to Trump’s foreign policy and threatens to tangle the Senate in a series of floor votes this summer.
US Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is leading the effort, but he has support from two of Trump’s allies in US Congress: senators Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul.
Anger has been mounting in Congress over the Trump administration’s close ties to Saudi Arabia, fueled by the high civilian casualties in a Saudi Arabian-led war in Yemen — a military campaign the US is assisting — and the killing of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabian agents.
Trump’s decision last month to sell the weapons, in a manner intended to bypass congressional review, further inflamed the tensions.
“While I understand that Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of [Saudi Arabian Crown Prince] Mohammad bin Salman cannot be ignored. Now is not the time to do business as usual with Saudi Arabia,” Graham said in a statement on Wednesday.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that an operation like the killing of Khashoggi could not have happened without the knowledge of the powerful crown prince.
Adding to the outcry, Senator Tim Kaine revealed this week that the Trump administration continued to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia even after Khashoggi’s murder.
Kaine said that information, which he received from the US Department of Energy, added “to a disturbing pattern of behavior” by the administration.
Menendez’s introduction of the 22 resolutions on Wednesday created a challenge for Senate leadership, as he is using a procedure that can force action on the Senate floor.
Other supporters of the effort include Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a long-time critic of the war in Yemen, Republican Senator Todd Young, and Democratic senators Patrick Leahy and Jack Reed.
The Trump administration last month invoked an emergency provision in the Arms Export Control Act to push through US$8 billion of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the sales were necessary to counter “the malign influence of the government of Iran throughout the Middle East region.”
Some of the weapons could be delivered later this year, while other arms would not ship for another year or later. The sale included precision guided munitions, other bombs and ammunition, and aircraft maintenance support.
“We are in an unprecedented situation,” Menendez said, adding that the 22 resolutions had the potential to “close the Senate for some period of time” due to the debate time that would be allotted to each resolution.
Menendez said he is asking the administration to rescind the emergency declaration so the arms sales can be considered by Congress.
“The question before the Senate is do you want to be a separate, coequal branch of government, or do you want to give this and future administrations a carte blanche,” he said.
Congress has never before tried to block a sale pushed through by the White House with an emergency declaration and it was unclear if the resolutions introduced on Wednesday would be successful, a Senate aide said on condition of anonymity, adding that Senate leadership and lawmakers might ultimately need to rule on whether it can proceed.
It also remains to be seen if the resolutions can gain enough support to overcome a likely presidential veto.
Lawmakers blocked about US$2 billion in arms sales to the kingdom for more than a year, citing concerns over human rights.
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