Sen. Ted Cruz urged President Trump to submit the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement to the Senate for a ratification vote, hoping to kill the agreements before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
“Your administration has rightly changed course as a matter of substantive policy by withdrawing from both the Iran Deal and the Paris Agreement. This was a great accomplishment for the American people,” Cruz wrote to Trump.
“I urge you now also to remedy the harm done to the balance of powers by submitting the Iran Deal and the Paris Agreement to the Senate as treaties,” the Texas Republican continued. “Only by so doing will the Senate be able to satisfy its constitutional role to provide advice and consent in the event any future administration attempts to revive these dangerous deals.”
Trump pulled out of both agreements that were negotiated under former President Barack Obama, but Biden promised to rejoin the Paris Agreement on the first day of his administration while working to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
The idea behind Cruz’s plea is that sending the pacts to the Senate to die would signal Republican opposition and undermine Biden’s plans for unilateral action on the agreements.
A senior congressional aide told RealClearPolitics that sending the agreements to the Senate to be voted down “would be the final nail in the coffin” for the pacts.
Obama sidestepped congressional approval on both the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement, knowing he didn’t have the two-thirds vote required to seal the pacts as treaties. Instead, both were entered into as executive agreements, which can easily be withdrawn from when a new executive enters office.
Both deals face near-universal Republican opposition, ensuring little threat that the Senate would ratify them if Trump decides to take the senator’s advice.
