State Department Approves $1.4b Helicopters, F-16 Parts Sale To Uae

The U.S. has announced a potential sale of more than $1.4 billion in helicopters and F-16 fighter jet parts to the United Arab Emirates, days ahead of President Trump’s visit to the country. 

The State Department on Monday evening said the proposed sale, which was approved and notified to Congress, includes $1.32 billion for CH-47 F Chinook helicopters and $130 million for parts and support for F-16s.

Trump is expected to travel to the UAE as the final stop on his four-day trip to the Middle East, a visit that is expected to reveal several new financial deals between the two countries. 

The UAE has already pledged to spend $1.4 trillion in U.S. investments over the next decade, expected to focus on semiconductors, manufacturing, energy and artificial intelligence. 

Trump may also announce a major arms sale with the first country on his Middle East stop, Saudi Arabia.

While arms transfers and defense trade — overseen by the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency and the State Department — are seen as important tools of U.S. foreign policy and national security, such sales to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are seen as controversial given the two countries are involved in Yemen’s brutal civil war.

The State Department first reviews the deals sought by other countries to make sure they line up with Washington’s goals and, if approved, notifies Congress of the sale. Lawmakers then have the option to reject a potential agreement, but if not, the U.S. government moves on to negotiations.

Democratic lawmakers Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (Calif.) in January opposed a $1.2 billion arms sales to the UAE over its providing of weapons to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, a group the U.S. has charged with war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

Ahead of the latest UAE sale announcement, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Monday said he would “block any arms sale to a nation that is doing direct personal business with Trump,” pointing to the Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm that is putting $2 billion into Trump’s crypto venture and Qatar's gifting of a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet. 

“We should have a full Senate debate and vote,” Murphy wrote on X. “UAE's investment in Trump crypto and Qatar's gifting of a plane is nuclear grade graft. An unacceptable corruption of our foreign policy.”

Congress in the past has attempted to block Trump from pushing through arms sales to Gulf nations, most notably in 2019, when they placed holds on deals for Saudi Arabia and the UAE over concerns about civilian casualties in the Yemen war, where the Saudi coalition has been blamed for the majority of civilian deaths.

But Trump invoked a provision of the law that allows sales to go through immediately without a review period in cases deemed an emergency, attempting to circumvent Congress and push through 22 separate deals with the Saudis, Emiratis and Jordanians, with a total value of $8.1 billion.

Democrats who oppose any Gulf nation sales this time around will have a significantly harder time blocking them, given they only hold the minority in both the House and Senate.