Aftandilian in The Arab Weekly on Trump’s Veto Power
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on United States President Donald Trump’s use of the presidential veto to counteract several congressional measures that would have blocked arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump Takes on Congress to Protect US-Saudi Ties,” was published in The Arab Weekly on August 3, 2019.
From the text of the article:
US President Donald Trump has used his constitutional powers to veto several congressional measures designed to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
This presidential action will have the effect of keeping US ties to Riyadh intact but will contribute to more tensions between the White House and Congress, even among some Republicans.
Trump’s Middle East policy, as many analysts have noted, has been largely Saudi-centric. From the beginning of his presidency, Trump sought to cultivate the Saudi leadership, including making Riyadh the first foreign capital that he visited as president.
Part of this policy was transactional: large arms sales to the kingdom, in Trump’s view, helped to create good-paying manufacturing jobs in the United States, which was one of his key campaign pledges in 2016.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).