US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that Congress will block President Donald Trump’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has been carrying out a war of aggression against the impoverished people of Yemen since 2015.
Speaking at a forum in New York on Thursday night, Pelosi said the House of Representatives would soon vote to block the transfer of weapons to Saudi Arabia, America’s strongest ally in the Persian Gulf.
“There will be a vote to remove any authority to make those sales to Saudi Arabia,” Pelosi said during an interview with Fareed Zakaria hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. “This is something that we will fight, and we’ll have bipartisan support to fight.”
The White House said last month it was making an emergency provision within the country’s arms control law to enable the billions of dollars of arms sales to the Saudi kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, the US’s strongest allies in the Persian Gulf. The recourse helps the president spare congressional review for the exports.
The Trump administration had cited “alleged threats from Iran” to justify resorting to the provision.
Trump has been accused of creating a “phony” emergency to bypass Congress to approve the $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.
