Biden temporarily suspends arms sales to UAE, Saudi Arabia

(Worthy News) – The newly inaugurated Biden administration announced Wednesday it has temporarily suspended arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, DW reports. Noting it is standard practice for a new administration to review arms deals worth billions of dollars, a US State Department official described the suspension as “routine administrative action.”

In a statement about the temporary arms sales freeze, the State Department said the pause would allow the government to ensure “US arms sales meet our strategic objectives of building stronger, interoperable and capable security partners,” DW said.

Negotiated by the Trump presidency after the November 3, 2020, US election, one of the deals now on hold is the sale of 50 Lockheed-Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets to the UAE for $23 billion, DW reports.

It is not known which other arms deals might be affected, DW noted. One possibility is the potential sale to Saudi Arabia of 3,000 precision-guided missiles worth $290 million, approved by Trump’s State Department on December 29, 2020.

During his campaign for the presidency, Joe Biden promised to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia in order to stop the Saudi-led war against Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, DW said.

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