UAE F-35 Sale ‘Possible’ Before Biden’s Sworn In, Trump Official Says; US Sold $175B In Arms

WASHINGTON: Trump administration officials believe they can wrap up the recent proposed sale of F-35s to the UAE before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20.

“I get asked if it’s possible; absolutely it’s possible,” Heidi Grant, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, told reporters at the Pentagon Friday. “But, you know, we don’t control it. We’re waiting on the Congress benchmark. Then we’re gonna wait once we offer it for the Emiratis it’s up to them as far as timelines, but it’s possible.”

The F-35 deal was part of a larger, $23.3 billion package approved by the State Department last month which includes up to 50 F-35s worth $10.4 billion, 18 MQ-9Bs worth $2.97 billion, and $10 billion worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu secretly approved the F-35 sale as part of a normalization deal with UAE earlier this year, in exchange for the sale of more F-35s to Israel, access to highly classified systems on the F-35 that Israel can’t currently import, and potentially gaining Israel access to highly classified SBIRS satellites. 

The controversial proposed sale could still be blocked by Congress, which has until next week to oppose the sale, and has some lawmakers have raised concerns within the incoming Biden administration.

Biden’s likely nominee to be Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, told reporters last month that the pending sale “is something we would look at very, very carefully, and make sure that the QME (Qualitative Military Edge) is preserved and also — very important — that Congress play a role.”

A bipartisan group of senators led the charge to block the sale last month, introducing four resolutions to stop the deal in its tracks. Democrats Bob Menendez and Chris Murphy teamed up with Republican Rand Paul led the charge, which is expected to come up for a vote next week. 

On Nov. 30 Murphy emerged from a classified briefing on the deal to tweet there are “a mind blowing number of unsettled issues and questions the Administration couldn’t answer. Hard to overstate the danger of rushing this through.”

Grant commented on the deal as part of the larger announcement of the annual tally of US arms sales around the world, in which Washington sold $175 billion worth of weapons to foreign partners and allies in fiscal 2020. That’s a 2.8 percent rise from the previous year’s total, an increase which underscores the Trump administration’s goal of exporting more weapons to spur domestic manufacturing jobs. 

Overall, American defense firms used the Direct Commercial Sales program to sell $124 billion worth of gear during the year, up from $114 billion in 2019. The Foreign Military Sales program, which is brokered through the State Department and DoD, totaled $50.7 billion, down from $55.4 billion in 2019.