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Congress Plans to Block US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

Congress Plans to Block US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
folder_openUnited States access_time4 years ago
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By Staff, Agencies

A showdown is coming between US President Donald Trump and the Congress over arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

A bipartisan group in the Senate — including some of Trump’s top allies — are planning a vote this summer to block the sale of $8 billion in American weaponry to a regime implicated in the death and dismemberment of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi, as well as using those weapons to commit atrocities in Yemen.

The Senate coalition ranges from progressives to libertarians who are outraged that top administration officials are claiming there’s an emergency in the Middle East that warrants them making those sales without approval of Congress.

“I think there’s a growing number of people and a growing resistance to allowing the government to operate by emergency,” Sen. Rand Paul [R-Ky.] told VICE News while rushing through the underbelly of the Capitol on the way to cast a vote. “So I think that you’re going to see the biggest vote we’ve had.”

It won’t be the first time Congress has tried to force a historic vote on the War Powers Act. In March, both the House and the Senate voted to end US involvement in the war in Yemen, but Trump vetoed the measure.

This time, lawmakers are planning to force individual votes on all 22 of the arms sales already approved by the administration.

And even Trump’s normally reliable Senate allies are preparing to confront the Trump administration on the Senate floor because they see the arms sales as an executive power grab.

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