Senate rejected resolutions aimed to block the sale of F-35s to the UAE
The Trump administration formally notified Congress last month of its intention to sell the F-35 stealth jet in a deal worth over $23 billion.
By OMRI NAHMIASF-35 Lightning II pilot US Air Force Captain Kristin "BEO" Wolfe performs the "dedication pass" maneuver at the 2020 Fort Lauderdale Air Show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US November 21, 2020.(photo credit: REUTERS)
WASHINGTON – The US Senate on Wednesday rejected two resolutions aimed to block the Trump administration’s F-35 sale to the United Arab Emirates.The votes were 50-46 and 49-47 on a procedural motion that stopped the effort to pass a resolution disapproving of the sale.Three US senators introduced different resolutions aimed at halting the sale of advanced arms to the United Arab Emirates, saying that the administration did not follow procedures in the sales process.The administration of President Donald Trump formally notified Congress last month of its intention to sell the F-35 stealth jet in a deal worth over $23 billion, as well as other state-of-the-art systems.US senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Rand Paul (R-KY) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) announced that they are introducing four separate Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, “rejecting the Trump administration’s effort to provide the United Arab Emirates with a precedent-setting aircraft and myriad other weapons systems.”An administration official told The Jerusalem Post that the president’s senior adviser, Jared Kushner and special representative for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz spoke to several senators ahead of the vote, asking them to oppose the resolution.Menendez said during his speech on the Senate floor that “there are far too many outstanding questions and very serious questions about long-term US national security interests.”“Beyond obliterating the Congressional review process, the administration also seems to have rushed through the inter-agency review of a sale of this magnitude,” he continued. “Whereas a sale of this scope would normally merit months and months of detailed deliberations between the departments of Defense and State, this sale was announced with more missing than a few dotted I’s and crossed T’s.”“Do we really think we can sell this just to the UAE and not have those other countries come knocking on our door and start a very sophisticated arms race in the tinderbox of the world?” Menendez asked.Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, addressed the arms sales on Tuesday and said that the opposition to the deal was politically motivated.
“We are buying weapons with our own money to defend ourselves from a common threat,” the ambassador continued. “We are co-deploying with [the US] everywhere you go. We just made peace with Israel. And so, on substance and policy, there’s really very little argument against it,” Otaiba said.On Monday, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, said in an interview with MSNBC that Jerusalem believes that Abu Dhabi is an ally in confronting Iran and does not think that the proposed arms sales to the Arab state will violate the US commitment to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge.“What keeps me up at night is actually not the proposed F-35 sale to the Emirates,” said Dermer. “What keeps me up at night is the idea that somebody would return to the nuclear deal with Iran.”Reuters contributed to this report.
