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arms sales
Instead of Pausing a Ban on Bribing Foreign Officials, Trump Should Strengthen It
Not only should the FCPA be vigorously enforced to stop bribery of foreign officials by U.S. companies, but the law must also be strengthened to combat the flip side of the corruption coin—foreign bribes accepted by American officials.
Feb 25, 2025
On February 10, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to pause the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA was the first law in modern history to ban a country’s own citizens and companies from bribing foreign officials.
Citing the law as one of the “excessive barriers to American commerce abroad,” President Trump has instructed the attorney general to—at her discretion—“cease the initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions.” The executive order further requires the DOJ to provide remedial measures for those who have faced "inappropriate" penalties as a result of past FCPA investigations and guilty verdicts.
This move by the Trump administration to pause enforcement of the foreign bribery law now and allow it to be put on the shelf later risks a revival of the pre-1970s period, when bribery was a routine practice among major U.S. arms contractors.
If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to “stop the war profiteering and to always put America first,” it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well.
In the post-Watergate reform period in Congress, in late 1975 and early 1976, Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s Subcommittee on the Conduct of Multinational Corporations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee exposed widespread foreign bribery on the part of U.S. oil and aerospace firms, with the starring role played by Lockheed Martin, which bribed officials in Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia in pursuit of contracts for its civilian and military aircraft.
The revelations caused political turmoil in the recipient countries, led to the resignation of Lockheed’s two top executives, and prompted Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
The repercussions were most severe in Japan, where Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested and convicted of receiving bribes in the scandal—the first time a sitting Japanese prime minister had been arrested, in what one analyst called “Japan’s biggest scandal of the postwar era.”
Sen. Church made it clear that in his mind, the problem went far beyond the question of corruption: “It is no longer sufficient to simply sigh and say that is the way business is done. It is time to treat the issue for what it is: a serious foreign policy problem.”
Among the issues he cited were potential destabilization of democratic allies and closer ties with reckless, dictatorial regimes driven by financial motivations rather than careful consideration of U.S. security interests.
As noted above, President Trump’s primary reason for freezing enforcement of the anti-bribery law is that he believes it has been used unfairly, to the detriment of U.S. companies and U.S. security. This argument does not hold up to scrutiny.
First of all, there is no evidence that outlawing bribery has hurt the U.S. arms industry. The United States has been the world’s largest arms supplier by a large margin for 25 of the past 26 years, and major U.S. arms offers reached near record levels of $145 billion last year.
The real issue is how to stop dangerous, counterproductive arms transfers, not how to make it easier to cash in on sales that too often undermine U.S. interests.
A 2022 Quincy Institute study found that U.S.-supplied weapons were present in two-thirds of the world’s active conflicts, and that at least 31 clients of the U.S. arms industry were undemocratic regimes. Fueling conflicts and supporting reckless authoritarian regimes are destabilizing to regions of importance to U.S. security. They also risk drawing the United States into a direct, boots-on-the-ground conflict.
If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to “stop the war profiteering and to always put America first,” it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well. Just last October, RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) was forced to pay over $950 million in fines after it was found to have engaged in multiple schemes to defraud the Department of Defense and violate the FCPA and the Arms Export Control Act by paying bribes to Qatari officials in pursuit of major military contracts with that nation.
Not only should the FCPA be vigorously enforced to stop bribery of foreign officials by U.S. companies, but the law must also be strengthened to combat the flip side of the corruption coin—foreign bribes accepted by American officials. The recent sentencing of former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to 11 years in prison after being found guilty of bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Egypt and Qatar underscores the need for stronger enforcement mechanisms.
Menendez’s guilty verdict as well as Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Texas) indictment on charges that included unlawful foreign influence and bribery reveal how those who wield influence over American foreign policy can be paid off in exchange for exerting unwarranted influence on behalf of a foreign government.
The debate over bribery may be obscuring a larger truth: U.S. arms sales policy is in desperate need of an overhaul. The governing legislation—the Arms Export Control Act—was passed in 1976, when the world was a very different place than it is today.
The law gives Congress the authority to block a major arms sale by passing a joint resolution of disapproval in both houses. But given that they would be opposing a sale already approved by the Executive Branch, they would likely need a veto-proof majority. This standard is too hard to meet. For example, when Congress voted against a sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia in the midst of that nation’s brutal intervention in Yemen, the measure was vetoed by President Trump
A major change that could have a significant impact on U.S. arms sales decisions is legislation that would “flip the script” by requiring an affirmative vote of Congress before major sales to key countries are allowed to go forward. This would strengthen Congress’ hand and make it easier to stop reckless sales that might fuel conflict or enable human rights abuses.
Instead of lifting restrictions on bribery to grease the wheels for additional foreign arms sales by U.S. weapons makers, Congress and the Trump administration should be crafting a policy designed to make sure overseas arms sales are governed by U.S. national interests, not special interests that profit from selling ever more weaponry to any and all customers.
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Biden Greenlights 'Racist' and 'Sociopathic' $8B Arms Sale to Israel
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza
Jan 04, 2025
The administration of US President Joe Biden announced on Saturday an arms sale to Israel valued at $8 billion, just ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Biden has repeatedly rejected calls to suspend military backing for Israel because of the number of civilians killed during the war in Gaza. Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, primarily women and children.
The sale includes medium-range air-to-air missiles, 155mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs, and more.
Human rights groups, former State Department officials, and Democratic lawmakers have urged the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, citing violations of US laws, including the Leahy Law, as well as international laws and human rights.
The Leahy Law, named after former Sen. Patrick Leahy, requires the US to withhold military assistance from foreign military or law enforcement units if there is credible evidence of human rights violations.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s most significant Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called Biden’s new $8 billion arms deal “racist” and “sociopathic.”
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for committing war crimes.
The US is, by far, the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.
CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said on Saturday:
“We strongly condemn the Biden administration for its unbelievable and criminal decision to send another $8 billion worth of American weapons to the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu instead of using American leverage to force an end to the genocide in Gaza.
“Only racists who do not view people of color as equally human, and sociopaths who delight in funding mass slaughter, could send Netanyahu even more bombs while his government openly kidnaps doctors, destroys hospitals, and exterminates the last survivors in northern Gaza.
“If President Biden is actually the person who approved this new $8 billion arms sale, then he is a war criminal who belongs in a cell at The Hague alongside Netanyahu. But if Antony Blinken, Brett McGurk, Jake Sullivan, and other aides are making these unconscionable decisions as shadow presidents, then anyone with a conscience in the administration should speak up now about their abuses of power.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US accounted for 69% of Israel's imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023.
On the other hand, incoming President-elect Donald Trump has also pledged unwavering support for Israel and has never committed to supporting an independent Palestinian state.
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'Rank Dishonesty': Internal Docs Detail How Blinken Rejected Calls to Cut Off US Arms to Israel
"The Biden administration is not only complicit in genocide. It's knowingly complicit," said one analyst.
Sep 24, 2024
When the U.S. State Department, headed by Antony Blinken, told Congress earlier this year that "we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance," it was directly contradicting the internal findings of its own experts and those of USAID.
Blinken's decision to publicly reject conclusions by other U.S. officials despite the compelling evidence they marshaled highlighted "a deep rift within the Biden administration on the issue of military aid to Israel," ProPublicareported Tuesday in a detailed story examining internal communications and other private documents.
Under U.S. law—specifically Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act—the federal government is barred from approving arms transfers to any country that "prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
Blinken's official denial that Israel is restricting the flow of U.S. humanitarian aid allows the Biden administration to maintain that its weapons transfers are lawful.
ProPublica obtained emails showing that, prior to Blinken's statement to Congress denying that Israel was impeding the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid, the head of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration had "determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel."
USAID, headed by the prominent liberal interventionist Samantha Power—who authored a book on American leaders' failure to act in the face of genocide—separately concluded in both a report and a 17-page memo to Blinken that Israel deliberately restricted U.S. humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza, which is now facing famine, the reemergence of polio, and other crises.
"The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots, and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine," ProPublica reported Tuesday. "The USAID officials wrote that because of Israel's behavior, the U.S. should pause additional arms sales to the country."
USAID sent its memo to Blinken less than a month before the U.S. State Department told Congress that, contrary to the findings of administration experts as well as scores of outside groups, the Israeli military was not restricting U.S. humanitarian aid.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote that the new ProPublica reporting underscores that "the Biden administration is not only complicit in genocide. It's knowingly complicit."
Filmmaker Alex Gibney accused Blinken of "rank dishonesty on Gaza."
"Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would be immoral. It would also be illegal."
ProPublica's reporting also details the role Jack Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, played in ensuring that U.S. weapons continued to flow to the Israeli military. In March, the investigative outlet noted, Lew "sent Blinken a cable arguing that Israel’s war cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, should be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to the Palestinians."
While Lew conceded that "other parts of the Israeli government have tried to impede the movement" of humanitarian assistance, he argued that on the whole "Israel will not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede" aid provided or backed by the U.S.
That statement, according to United Nations figures and assessments by aid organizations on the ground, has proven to be false.
Last week, a coalition of humanitarian groups estimated that Israel's siege is blocking 83% of food aid from reaching the Gaza Strip, where most of the population is hungry and at growing risk of starvation.
An update released Monday by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) notes that 46% of "humanitarian movements have been either denied or impeded in August, making it the most challenging month for humanitarian access since January 2024."
Meanwhile, U.S. arms are still flowing to the Israeli military as it continues to assail Gaza and expand its attacks on Lebanon.
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department announced the approval of $165 million in weapons sales to Israel, a decision that came less than 30 days after the Biden administration signed off on a sprawling $20 billion sale of U.S. arms.
The latter transfer is the target of a resolution of disapproval announced last week by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said in a floor speech that Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza amount to a "clear violation of U.S. and international law."
"Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would be immoral. It would also be illegal," Sanders said. "The sales would reward Netanyahu's extremist government even as it flouts U.S. policy goals at every turn and drags the United States closer to a regional war."
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