Trump plans to skirt Congress on arms to Gulf nations

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to circumvent Congress to allow the export to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of billions of dollars worth of munitions that are on hold, according to current and former U.S. officials and legislators familiar with the plan.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior aides are pushing for the administration to invoke an emergency provision that would allow President Donald Trump to prevent Congress from halting the sales, worth about $7 billion. The transactions, which include precisionguided munitions and combat aircraft, would infuriate lawmakers in both parties.

They would also inflame tensions between the United States and Iran, which views Saudi Arabia as its main rival and has been supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen in their campaign against a Saudi-led military coalition that includes the UAE.

U.S. legislators from both parties remain incensed by the Trump administration’s equivocal response to the grisly killing last October by Saudi agents of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Virginia resident. They are also frustrated by the administration’s role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen war, a four-year conflict the United Nations has deemed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with thousands of civilians killed and millions suffering from famine.

This spring, the House and Senate approved bipartisan legislation to cut off military assistance to Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen using the 1973 War Powers Act, only to see it vetoed in April.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an outspoken ally of the president, told reporters Thursday that he would “not do business as usual with the Saudis until we have a better reckoning” with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whom U.S. intelligence agencies consider to be responsible for the killing of Khashoggi and the Saudi role in the Yemen war.

No other foreign policy issue has created as large a rift between Trump and Congress, and the move on the arms sales, which could take place within days, would deepen the divide. Pompeo would oversee the action, and the State Department is bracing for lawmakers to stall confirmations on all State Department nominees if it is implemented. Within the department, veteran Foreign Service officers have strongly opposed Pompeo’s position.