Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Arabia

Biden suspends sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to UAE

2021-01-28

He's already jump-started f*cking things up
[JPost] Biden administration reviewing Trump-era arms deals, may still approve them, official says.
Looking for a little sumpthin-sumpthin for Hunter and the Iranians?
The US plans to reevaluate the Trump administration’s decision to sell F-35 jets to the United Arab Emirates.

I suspect the Biden team’s thinking is that without the arms sales, all the normalization deals will fall apart. But they aren’t taking the very real threat of Iran into account, which goes to show they haven’t caught up with the events of the last four years.

A US State Department official said on Wednesday that the Biden administration "temporarily paused" for review several pending arms sales to US allies, amounting to billions of dollars.

Among them are sales of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE and precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia.

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, addressed the decision to review the F-35 sale to the UAE. Speaking at a press conference at the State Department, Blinken said that when it comes to arms sales, "it is typical at the start of an administration to review any pending sales, to make sure that what is being considered is something that advances our strategic objectives and advances our foreign policy, so that's what we're doing at this moment."

"We very much support the Abraham Accords, we think that Israel normalizing relations with its neighbors and other countries in the region is a very positive development and so, we applaud them, and we hope that there may be an opportunity to build on it in the months and years ahead," Blinken added. "We're also trying to make sure that we have a full understanding of any commitments that may have been made in securing those agreements, and that's something we're looking at right now," he said.

Blinken also addressed the prospects of rejoining the nuclear agreement with Iran. "President Biden has been very clear in saying that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing, and then we would use that as a platform, to build with our allies and partners, what we call the longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran," he said.

"But we are a long ways from that point," Blinken continued. "Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts. It would take some time, should it make the decision to do so for it to come back into compliance and time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations. So we're not there yet, to say the least."

The F-35 sale came soon after the UAE and Israel signed a peace and normalization agreement mediated by the Trump administration, known as the Abraham Accords.

Though the warplanes were not officially part of the Abraham Accords, UAE officials said soon after the agreement was announced that they hoped it would help the US approve their longstanding request to purchase F-35s.

Posted by:Frank G

#7 A walking disaster, he is.

Load on all this radical stuff up front, retire Biden, and Harris is off to a fresh, clean start.

"Biden did it, but he's gone. Let's move on."

Posted by: KBK 2021-01-28 18:35

#6 Right up front it's important to punish anyone who cooperated with Trump, and to be seen doing it.

Posted by: ed in texas 2021-01-28 13:41

#5 Ask him with executive order portfolio he signed which this is in.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2021-01-28 12:04

#4 What Xiden would really want to do is sell those to Iran.

Posted by: CrazyFool 2021-01-28 11:02

#3 Running for President as a covert KGB operative explains the $3.5 Million payment the Moscow mayors wife made to Joe and Hunter.

Posted by: Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 2021-01-28 10:51

#2 What's pissing away $20 billion of sales when Biden is getting ready to piss away 1900 billion?

Posted by: Big Craish6553 2021-01-28 01:08

#1 "We very much support the Abraham Accords, ..." He lied.

Posted by: CrazyFool 2021-01-28 00:40

00:00