US Lawmakers Urge Trump to Approve Reaper Sales to Jordan, UAE
IsraelDefense
| 19/04/2017
A bipartisan group of twenty lawmakers is calling for the Trump administration to allow sales of armed unmanned systems to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
The lawmakers appealed to US President Donald Trump to depart from the Obama administration’s opposition to sending the MQ-9 Reaper to those Middle Eastern nations. The Trump administration has already signaled he is more flexible on arms exports by supporting a still-pending sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain without the human rights caveats imposed by the Obama administration.
The letter argues the sales could pump $1 billion into the US economy and that “it would preserve thousands of US manufacturing jobs.”
The letter comes as the White House proposes a budget that would kill US subsidies for foreign allies, including Jordan, to buy American-made weapons outright and replace them with a loans program. Israel makes up more than half of the $5.7 billion program, with Egypt and Jordan next in line.
[Source: Defense News]
A bipartisan group of twenty lawmakers is calling for the Trump administration to allow sales of armed unmanned systems to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
The lawmakers appealed to US President Donald Trump to depart from the Obama administration’s opposition to sending the MQ-9 Reaper to those Middle Eastern nations. The Trump administration has already signaled he is more flexible on arms exports by supporting a still-pending sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain without the human rights caveats imposed by the Obama administration.
The letter argues the sales could pump $1 billion into the US economy and that “it would preserve thousands of US manufacturing jobs.”
The letter comes as the White House proposes a budget that would kill US subsidies for foreign allies, including Jordan, to buy American-made weapons outright and replace them with a loans program. Israel makes up more than half of the $5.7 billion program, with Egypt and Jordan next in line.
[Source: Defense News]
