President Joe Biden’s administration has temporarily paused some pending arms sales to U.S. allies in order to review them, a move that is typical for most new incoming administrations, especially if arms sales are announced just hours before the outgoing administration departs.
The Department is “temporarily pausing the implementation of some pending U.S. defense transfers and sales under Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales to allow incoming leadership an opportunity to review,” an official cited by Reuters said.
Ex-president Donald Trump’s administration “was doing deals down to the wire, including one for 50 stealthy F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin as a side deal to the Abraham accords inked only moments before Biden was sworn into office,” Reuters notes. The F-35 jets are a major component of a $23 billion sale of high-tech armaments from General Atomics, Lockheed and Raytheon Technologies Corp to the United Arab Emirates.
The review, the officials said, also includes the sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia. A senior administration official said the weapons sales to Saudi Arabia were being frozen pending the review, but that sales to the Emirates were not frozen while they are being examined, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Calling it “a routine administrative action,” the State department spokesman said the review “demonstrates the administration’s commitment to transparency and good governance, as well as ensuring U.S. arms sales meet our strategic objectives of building stronger, interoperable and more capable security partners.”
“As far as international business, including foreign military sales, the tendency of the people in the Biden administration [and] in the president’s own statements, reiterate his view that alliances are important that they need to be cultivated, and that they have real value in deterrence and national defense…I do think that we’ll have a more open environment for [foreign military sales] and direct commercial sales to our international partners, Jim Taiclet, Lockheed Martin CEO, said in a call reported yesterday by Defense One.
Taiclet added he still expected foreign arms sales to remain a priority in the Biden administration.
