Alongside appropriating taxpayer money and writing the laws of the nation, oversight is one of the legislative branch’s most important functions. The Constitution was built on the idea that accountability should be built into our system of government. By spreading the power among the three separate branches, excesses will be checked, bad policy will be prevented, and recklessness will be tamed before it causes significant problems for the country.
The process of selling U.S. arms to foreign governments is built on the very same premise. Before a sale can proceed, the State Department unofficially notifies the head and ranking members of the foreign relations committees, who are granted the power to delay the process if they have additional questions about why the sale in the U.S. national interest. If those questions are resolved, Congress is given 30 days to review the terms of the proposal and pass a resolution of disapproval to kill it. While it’s enormously difficult for Congress to pass such a resolution with a veto-proof majority (in fact, this has never happened), the ability of senior lawmakers to place a hold on a sale at least provides Congress with leverage to get more details.
President Trump is a big fan of arms exports. He views selling U.S. military wares as good business and good economics, the kind that could net American defense companies billions of dollars in profits and create thousands of jobs stateside. Thus, the Trump administration has never liked the notion that a single lawmaker could slow down an arms package. The White House and the State Department are reportedly in discussions to simply do away with traditional practice in order to accelerate a number of deals now in the pipeline — deals that include the export of thousands of munitions to Saudi Arabia, drones to the United Arab Emirates, helicopter repairs to Egypt, and missiles to Turkey. Get those pesky lawmakers out of the way and those weapons can be expedited.
There’s no doubt that a change to the existing process would be a boon for business. Unfortunately, it would also be an insult to Congress’s prerogatives and horrible policy.
There is a logic to why Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike support the current system.
For one, a “hold” is a very handy tool for the legislative branch. Executive branch agencies and departments aren’t exactly forthcoming or proactive in providing members of Congress with information on a timely basis. If the White House had its way, Congress would look like the peanut gallery: a collection of people who may squawk and complain in public but who have little to no effect in setting policy for the nation. Strip the foreign affairs committees of their power to stall a sale indefinitely, and you deprive those bodies of one of their most valuable methods to get answers or pressure the White House to take a second look at a policy. Republicans and Democrats have all used holds when they believe the administration isn’t being forthright or is showing little to no concern about the unintended consequences of an arms sale. This isn’t about partisanship — even Republican lawmakers have used the tactic against Republican presidents.
For the White House, holds are just one more nuisance. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ongoing personal feud with Sen. Robert Menendez, who has gotten in between Saudi Arabia and its latest order of thousands of additional U.S.-manufactured bombs, is likely a big motivator for Pompeo to lead the charge in changing the rules.
But for those of us who are outside of the everyday partisan squabbling in Washington, it’s important to take a step back and imagine what the world would look like if Congress no longer possessed the power to block an arms sale. The public would have far less transparency about where U.S. weapons are being used. Congress would be virtually powerless to prevent an arms sale from happening given the president’s veto. More indiscriminate arms would be sent to unsavory and seedy governments less than concerned with human rights (such as Saudi Arabia). And the United States would be dragged into a bunch of tertiary conflicts it has no interest or business being involved in.
Washington needs to reevaluate its arms sales policy. But this is precisely the wrong way to do it.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
