The Senate voted 87-10 Wednesday to pass Congress’ annual defense policy bill, sending it to President Trump to be signed into law.
The $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act is the second installment of a two-year budget deal aimed at rebuilding the military. It also includes provisions suspending sales of F-35 joint strike fighters to Turkey and countering Russian influence.
“This NDAA builds on the progress we made earlier this year in the bipartisan budget agreement, which provided for the largest year-on-year increase in funding for American armed forces in 15 years,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.
The actual funding for the policy bill has yet to materialize from Congress. The House passed its 2019 defense appropriations bill earlier this summer, but the Senate is still wrangling over how to bring its bill to the chamber floor.
Meanwhile, senators and House lawmakers angered by Turkey’s imprisonment of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson added a rebuke to the NATO ally in the NDAA by temporarily halting its purchases of the advanced F-35 fighters.
The bill suspends sales of the Lockheed Martin jets to Ankara until the Pentagon delivers a report on bilateral military relations and Turkey’s potential purchase of the S-400 air and missile defense system from Russia, which has also raised deep concerns in Washington. The report is due within 90 days of the NDAA being signed into law.
A raft of Russia measures in the NDAA clears the way for the military to pursue a new low-yield nuclear warhead, hikes authorized funding for the U.S. military presence in eastern Europe, and provides new waivers the Pentagon says could wean allies from dependence on Moscow.
The NDAA also prohibits the government and any contractors from doing business with Chinese telecom ZTE or Huawei Technologies, which many lawmakers see as a national security threat.
Lawmakers nixed a measure championed in the Senate that would have re-imposed penalties on ZTE for violating North Korea and Iran sanctions. The move would have sunk a deal between Trump and China to let the company pay a smaller $1 billion fine, and it was strongly opposed by the White House.
Just before the NDAA vote, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., took to the chamber floor to decry the removal of the ZTE sanctions, saying it lets the company off the hook by imposing only the $1 billion fine and leaves the U.S. open to potential spying by its products.
“In the middle of a bill that is supposed to help protect our national security, we now have a big hole. We have a bill hole because by taking out the amendment we had to penalize ZTE the final result creates unnecessary exposure,” Van Hollen said.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the congressional conference committee that wrote the NDAA had to remove the measure or face finding $1 billion elsewhere in the legislation to cover the expected fine payment from ZTE.
“That $1 billion offset could only come from military programs subject to our jurisdiction — the end strength of the military, platforms we might acquire — we found it difficult to work our way through that issue,” Reed said.
