Emergency Arms Sales to Gulf States: $23 Billion Bypassing Congressional Review

What Happened

The Trump administration has used emergency authority to push through over $23 billion in arms sales to Gulf states — principally the UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan — while simultaneously dismantling every human rights safeguard governing American weapons exports. The combination of emergency congressional bypass, rescission of human rights conditions, and sales to a country documented as arming genocidal forces in Sudan represents a systematic removal of the legal guardrails designed to prevent US complicity in atrocities.

The Emergency Arms Sales

In March 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an emergency waiver under the Arms Export Control Act to bypass the mandatory 30-day congressional review period for arms sales exceeding specified dollar thresholds. The administration cited the ongoing war with Iran as justification for the emergency.

The approved packages include $2.1 billion worth of 10 FS-LIDS counter-drone interception systems and 240 Coyote drone interceptor systems for the UAE, approximately $8 billion in air and missile defense radar systems for Kuwait, and additional packages for Jordan. While some reports cite a $16.5 billion total, other reporting places the combined value at over $23 billion when all packages are included.

The emergency waiver mechanism is legally available under the Arms Export Control Act but has historically been used sparingly. Its use here bypasses the congressional review process that serves as the primary democratic check on arms transfers.

Dismantling Human Rights Conditions

The arms sales occurred against the backdrop of the administration's systematic removal of human rights conditions from weapons exports:

On February 21, 2025, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz relayed Trump's decision to immediately rescind NSM-20, the Biden-era National Security Memorandum requiring recipients of US weapons to provide "credible and reliable written assurances" of compliance with international humanitarian law and facilitation of humanitarian aid delivery. NSM-20 had been issued on February 8, 2024, specifically in response to concerns about US weapons being used in violations of international law.

On March 14, 2025, the administration rescinded NSM-18, the conventional arms transfer policy itself. This left the United States — the world's largest arms exporter — without a conventional arms transfer policy for the first time since 1977.

The UAE and Sudan's Genocide

The sales to the UAE are particularly significant because of the UAE's documented role in arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. In January 2025, the US State Department concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias had committed genocide in Sudan. A UN panel monitoring compliance with the Darfur arms embargo identified an RSF supply route running from Abu Dhabi International Airport through eastern Chad into western Sudan. A September 2024 New York Times investigation concluded the UAE was secretly "expanding its covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan, funneling money, weapons and, now, powerful drones."

Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Sara Jacobs, after reviewing classified intelligence, publicly confirmed the UAE was providing weapons to the RSF in contradiction to its assurances to the United States. Congressional efforts to block arms sales to the UAE pending cessation of RSF support were defeated along party lines.

Legal Analysis

The Arms Trade Treaty — which the United States has signed but not ratified — prohibits the authorization of arms transfers where the exporting state "has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes." While the US is not bound by the treaty as a non-ratifying signatory, the treaty reflects the international legal consensus on responsible arms transfers.

More directly applicable is Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States has ratified. Common Article 1 requires High Contracting Parties "to respect and to ensure respect for" the conventions "in all circumstances." The International Court of Justice and the ICRC have interpreted this as imposing a positive obligation on states not to facilitate violations of international humanitarian law by third parties. Selling arms to the UAE without conditions — while possessing documented evidence of UAE arms flowing to genocidal forces in Sudan — is difficult to reconcile with this obligation.

The Genocide Convention's Article III(e) makes complicity in genocide punishable. Providing arms to a state known to be arming a force committing genocide raises serious questions of complicity, particularly when the human rights conditions that might have mitigated this risk have been deliberately removed.

The Leahy Law, a US domestic statute, prohibits the furnishing of assistance to foreign security forces where there is credible information that the unit has committed gross violations of human rights. The rescission of NSM-20 does not repeal the Leahy Law, but the removal of the associated vetting and assurance framework undermines its practical enforcement.

Why This Is Classified Severe

This incident receives a severe severity classification because:

• Scale of transfers: Over $23 billion in arms sales represents one of the largest emergency bypasses of congressional review in US history.
• Genocide nexus: The UAE has been documented by a UN panel, the New York Times, and US lawmakers as arming the RSF, which the US State Department has determined is committing genocide. Selling weapons to the UAE without conditions creates a direct pipeline to genocidal forces.
• Deliberate removal of safeguards: The rescission of NSM-20, NSM-18, and the conventional arms transfer policy framework was not incidental — it was a deliberate, systematic dismantling of every human rights safeguard governing US arms transfers.
• Democratic bypass: The emergency waiver mechanism circumvents the congressional review process that serves as the primary democratic check on arms transfers.

International Law Violations

The following international law provisions are implicated:

1. Geneva Conventions Common Article 1: The obligation to "ensure respect" for the conventions requires states not to facilitate IHL violations by third parties. Selling arms to the UAE while it arms genocidal forces in Sudan is a potential violation.
2. Arms Trade Treaty Articles 6 and 7: While the US has not ratified the ATT, its provisions reflect customary international law prohibiting transfers that facilitate genocide, crimes against humanity, or serious IHL violations.
3. Genocide Convention Article III(e): Complicity in genocide is punishable. Providing arms to a state arming a genocidal force, after a US genocide determination, raises questions of complicity.
4. Arms Export Control Act Section 36: The emergency waiver mechanism is legally available but its use to circumvent democratic oversight on this scale raises questions about the good-faith application of the statute.