Tomorrow Congress will vote on resolutions of disapproval in response to Trump’s recent arms deal with Saudi Arabia. If passed, Senate Resolution 42 and House Resolution 102 would effectively block the sale of precision guided munitions kits, which the Saudis want in order to upgrade their “dumb bombs” to “smart bombs.” A similar effort was defeated last year in the Senate. How should we feel about this vote?
Before the ink was dry President Trump was busy bragging about his arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a deal that he claimed would reach $350 billion and would create “hundreds of thousands of jobs.” The sale bore all the hallmarks of Trump’s operating style. It was huge. It was a family deal—brokered by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. It was signed with pomp and circumstance during the president’s first international trip. But most importantly, as with so many of his deals, the deal was all sizzle and no Trump Steak.™
Trump’s arms deal with the Saudis is in fact a terrible deal for the United States. It might generate or sustain some jobs in the U.S. It will certainly help the bottom line of a handful of defense companies. But from a foreign policy and national security perspective, the case against selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is a powerful one for many reasons.
1. The deal will deepen U.S. complicity in Saudi Arabia’s inhumane war in Yemen.
In an almost three-year long intervention into the Yemeni civil war to defeat the Houthi rebels and to destroy the local Al Qaeda franchise (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—AQAP), the Saudis have demolished much of Yemen with little concern about the consequences. NGOs have documented case after case of the Saudis attacking civilian targets—the United Nations estimates over 10,000 civilians have died to date—and millions of Yemenis now suffer at the brink of starvation under increasingly desperate and unhealthy conditions. Tragically, the Saudis now seek American firepower to help them break the stalemate that has emerged on the ground in Yemen.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-no-good-very-bad-arms-deal
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