The US Senate has failed to block the planned sale of billions of dollarsof weapons to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in a move that gave PresidentDonald Trump a last-minute victory to further arm his allies in the MiddleEast.
US President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans opposed resolutions ofdisapproval seeking to block the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets anddrones to the Persian Gulf country.
The 100-member senate voted 50-46 and 49-47 to stop consideration of theresolutions.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the resolutions fell farshort of the two-thirds support that would be needed to overcome apresidential veto.
“It’s a little baffling to suggest that, now of all times, a protestgesture with no chance of obtaining a veto-proof majority is a valuable useof the Senate’s time,” McConnell said.
Early on Wednesday, the White House issued a formal notice of its intentionto veto the measures if they passed the Senate and House of Representatives.
It had informed Congress in November about the planned $23 billion sale tothe UAE of the F-35; more than 14,000 bombs and munitions; and thesecond-largest sale of US drones to a single country.
The sale was approved following a US-brokered agreement in September inwhich the UAE agreed to normalize relations with Israel.
The White House claimed that that the sales support US foreign policy andnational security objectives by “enabling the UAE to deter increasingIranian threats.”
Several US senators, including Murphy, had proposed legislation to halt theweapons sale to the UAE, setting up a showdown with Trump weeks before heis due to leave office.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said, “I support the normalization ofrelations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but nothing in thatagreement requires us to flood the region with more weapons and facilitatea dangerous arms race.”
He said Trump’s move to jam the transaction through quickly, without givingCongress time to review it, was designed to tie the hands ofPresident-elect Joe Biden.
Murphy said the arms sale to the UAE would constrain the options of Bidenwho has signaled he will return the US to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.
US lawmakers had expressed concern about whether the UAE sales wouldviolate a longstanding US agreement with Israel that any US weapons sold inthe Middle East must not impair Tel Aviv’s “Qualitative Military Edge”(QME) in the Middle East.
Those who supported the weapons sale said Abu Dhabi is an important USpartner in the Middle East. Opponents, however, reminded them of the UAE’sinvolvement in Saudi devastating war on Yemen.
Abu Dhabi is a key party to the Saudi war on Yemen that, according to TheUnited Nations, has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
The sale’s opponents warned that the transactions were being rushedthrough, without sufficient assurances that the advanced weapons would notfall into the wrong hands or fuel instability in the Middle East.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez said a US arms sale of this magnitude risksstarting a new arms race in the Middle East.
Democrats also accused Trump of cutting short or sidestepping Congress’typical review of major weapons sales.
The sale, which according to experts could take six to eight years todeliver, is expected to be reviewed by the incoming Biden administration.
Over the past four years of Trump’s presidency, lawmakers have repeatedlyfailed to block his plans for arms sales to Washington’s allies in theMiddle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Last year, Trump vetoed a series of measures that would have blocked thesale of billions of dollars of arms to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
The US president claimed back then that blocking the arms sales “wouldweaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the importantrelationships we share with our allies and partners.”
Saudi Arabia has been Washington’s number one weapons buyer.