Amidst growing concern about the feebleness of U.S. security assistance safeguards, a new proposal to raise the congressional notification thresholds for U.S. weapons sales presents an acute risk to the oversight and transparency of the U.S. arms trade. The proposed bill would effectively reduce the number of arms sales submitted for congressional review, adding to a lack of accountability in U.S. security assistance and raising the risk that American weapons will continue to find their way into the hands of predatory, violent, and repressive actors. Under the Arms Export Control Act, arms sales that reach a certain financial value require congressional notification and review. The transaction value triggering notification and the duration of the review period vary depending on the proposed recipient and weapons system in question. Under most circumstances, the executive branch must notify Congress 30 days ahead of concluding arms transfer arrangements of major defense equipment valued at $14 million or more, defense articles or services at valued $50 million or more, or design and construction services valued at $200 million or more. The value thresholds are higher and review periods shorter for NATO and its members, as well as Japan, Australia, South Korea, Israel, and New Zealand – the review period is halved to 15 days and notification values upped to $25 million, $100 million, and $300 million respectively.
Arms Export Control Act Transfer and Notification Value Thresholds
| Recipient | Transfer Type | Congressional Review Period | Value Threshold for Major Defense Equipment | Value Threshold for Defense Articles and Services | Value Threshold for Design and Construction | Value Threshold for Firearms |
| NATO, Israel, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand | Foreign Military Sale | 15 Calendar Days | $25 million | $100 million | $300 million | N/A |
| Direct Commercial Sale | 15 Calendar Days | $25 million | $100 million | N/A | $1 million |
| All Other Recipients | Foreign Military Sale | 30 Calendar Days | $14 million | $50 million | $200 million | N/A |
| Direct Commercial Sale | 30 Calendar Days | $14 million | $50 million | N/A | $1 million |
These notifications not only provide lawmakers an opportunity to weigh in on arms transfers but also act as de facto transparency mechanisms in an otherwise opaque enterprise. Notifications facilitate both public engagement and inter-branch negotiation on weighty security assistance decisions that hold tremendous consequences for human rights, civilian protection, U.S. grand strategy, and international security.
Even under the current system, an enormous number of arms transfers are conducted below value notification thresholds, meaning many billions of dollars of arms are exported each year with little to no congressional or public scrutiny. That lack of scrutiny can carry significant consequences. In 2019, for example, just as both Democrat and Republican lawmakers were pressing the administration to halt arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, billions of dollars more in weapons continued to flow under the radar and without congressional review. Between 2017 and 2020, the Department of State’s Office of the Inspector General found that more than 4,211 below-threshold arms transfers, worth roughly $11 billion, were made to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they engaged in a brutal air war in Yemen that precipitated what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the time called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Bipartisan uproar over the Trump administration’s subsequent decision to bypass congressional review altogether through the invocation of an emergency authority illustrated just how essential the notification process was to legislative oversight and in drawing attention to potentially irresponsible arms transfers.
The new proposal to raise thresholds for arms sales notifications by Representative Michael Waltz undermines an already tenuous oversight regime. Most immediately, raising notification thresholds would increase the number of arms transfers that proceed without congressional review, warping the political risk calculus for sales and incentivizing even more permissive and less restrained practices. Moreover, higher threshold values could encourage and enable efforts to break up divisive arms sales into smaller packages that avoid congressional notification or review.
Raising thresholds would also undermine “tiered review” process, whereby proposed arms transfers are submitted informally to the foreign affairs committees of the House and Senate ahead of formal notification. The informal notifications, though normative and not protected by statute, create an opportunity for lawmakers and the administration to “negotiate” on proposed arms sales, raise issues of concern, adjust sale packages, and, in some cases, place indefinite holds on sales of particular concern. Here too, raised thresholds would lift many transfers out of this process, and allow the executive branch to bypass a mechanism that has, in recent years, been instrumental in preventing sales based on human rights, humanitarian, and political objections.
Additionally, the proposed bill would shrink even further the already small window the public has into U.S. arms sales decision-making. For government-to-government sales, where over-threshold sales are publicly posted, notifications act as a catalyst for public and civil society engagement. The public notification process implicitly requires the administration to justify sales and creates political costs for arms transfers to risky or abusive partners. Direct commercial sales, or transfers from private actors to foreign actors licensed by the Department of State, meanwhile, have no public notification process. This makes congressional notification even more important, providing one of the sole mechanisms by which elected representatives gain visibility into a process that accounted for more than $157 billion in arms sales in FY2023.
Behind closed doors and hidden from public view, one can imagine how arms transfer decisions could easily drift away from the Biden administration’s stated goal of restraint in favor of riskier sales that would otherwise have incurred public and congressional opposition. Indeed, policy decisions that sacrifice the United States’ stated commitment to values find the most fertile ground in secrecy. Shielding arms transfer decisions from oversight and public accountability may incentivize sales that satisfy familiar security aims at the expense of key human rights, foreign policy, or civilian protection imperatives.
Public and congressional scrutiny have been, and continue to be, an important bulwark against potentially risky arms transfers that result from shortsighted and narrowly considered decisions. Rather than changing the notification thresholds required by the Arms Export Control Act, Congress should improve transparency over the security assistance and cooperation apparatus. By making more direct commercial sale notifications public, notifying Congress upon delivery, not just approval, of major sales, and offering more disaggregated data in the annually required 655 report, Congress can enhance its oversight role, rather than further undercutting it.
Turning a Second Blind Eye
How a New Bill Undermines Already Tenuous Oversight of Arms Sales
By Elias Yousif • Ari Tolany
Conventional Arms
Amidst growing concern about the feebleness of U.S. security assistance safeguards, a new proposal to raise the congressional notification thresholds for U.S. weapons sales presents an acute risk to the oversight and transparency of the U.S. arms trade. The proposed bill would effectively reduce the number of arms sales submitted for congressional review, adding to a lack of accountability in U.S. security assistance and raising the risk that American weapons will continue to find their way into the hands of predatory, violent, and repressive actors. Under the Arms Export Control Act, arms sales that reach a certain financial value require congressional notification and review. The transaction value triggering notification and the duration of the review period vary depending on the proposed recipient and weapons system in question. Under most circumstances, the executive branch must notify Congress 30 days ahead of concluding arms transfer arrangements of major defense equipment valued at $14 million or more, defense articles or services at valued $50 million or more, or design and construction services valued at $200 million or more. The value thresholds are higher and review periods shorter for NATO and its members, as well as Japan, Australia, South Korea, Israel, and New Zealand – the review period is halved to 15 days and notification values upped to $25 million, $100 million, and $300 million respectively.
Arms Export Control Act Transfer and Notification Value Thresholds
These notifications not only provide lawmakers an opportunity to weigh in on arms transfers but also act as de facto transparency mechanisms in an otherwise opaque enterprise. Notifications facilitate both public engagement and inter-branch negotiation on weighty security assistance decisions that hold tremendous consequences for human rights, civilian protection, U.S. grand strategy, and international security.
Even under the current system, an enormous number of arms transfers are conducted below value notification thresholds, meaning many billions of dollars of arms are exported each year with little to no congressional or public scrutiny. That lack of scrutiny can carry significant consequences. In 2019, for example, just as both Democrat and Republican lawmakers were pressing the administration to halt arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, billions of dollars more in weapons continued to flow under the radar and without congressional review. Between 2017 and 2020, the Department of State’s Office of the Inspector General found that more than 4,211 below-threshold arms transfers, worth roughly $11 billion, were made to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they engaged in a brutal air war in Yemen that precipitated what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the time called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Bipartisan uproar over the Trump administration’s subsequent decision to bypass congressional review altogether through the invocation of an emergency authority illustrated just how essential the notification process was to legislative oversight and in drawing attention to potentially irresponsible arms transfers.
The new proposal to raise thresholds for arms sales notifications by Representative Michael Waltz undermines an already tenuous oversight regime. Most immediately, raising notification thresholds would increase the number of arms transfers that proceed without congressional review, warping the political risk calculus for sales and incentivizing even more permissive and less restrained practices. Moreover, higher threshold values could encourage and enable efforts to break up divisive arms sales into smaller packages that avoid congressional notification or review.
Raising thresholds would also undermine “tiered review” process, whereby proposed arms transfers are submitted informally to the foreign affairs committees of the House and Senate ahead of formal notification. The informal notifications, though normative and not protected by statute, create an opportunity for lawmakers and the administration to “negotiate” on proposed arms sales, raise issues of concern, adjust sale packages, and, in some cases, place indefinite holds on sales of particular concern. Here too, raised thresholds would lift many transfers out of this process, and allow the executive branch to bypass a mechanism that has, in recent years, been instrumental in preventing sales based on human rights, humanitarian, and political objections.
Additionally, the proposed bill would shrink even further the already small window the public has into U.S. arms sales decision-making. For government-to-government sales, where over-threshold sales are publicly posted, notifications act as a catalyst for public and civil society engagement. The public notification process implicitly requires the administration to justify sales and creates political costs for arms transfers to risky or abusive partners. Direct commercial sales, or transfers from private actors to foreign actors licensed by the Department of State, meanwhile, have no public notification process. This makes congressional notification even more important, providing one of the sole mechanisms by which elected representatives gain visibility into a process that accounted for more than $157 billion in arms sales in FY2023.
Behind closed doors and hidden from public view, one can imagine how arms transfer decisions could easily drift away from the Biden administration’s stated goal of restraint in favor of riskier sales that would otherwise have incurred public and congressional opposition. Indeed, policy decisions that sacrifice the United States’ stated commitment to values find the most fertile ground in secrecy. Shielding arms transfer decisions from oversight and public accountability may incentivize sales that satisfy familiar security aims at the expense of key human rights, foreign policy, or civilian protection imperatives.
Public and congressional scrutiny have been, and continue to be, an important bulwark against potentially risky arms transfers that result from shortsighted and narrowly considered decisions. Rather than changing the notification thresholds required by the Arms Export Control Act, Congress should improve transparency over the security assistance and cooperation apparatus. By making more direct commercial sale notifications public, notifying Congress upon delivery, not just approval, of major sales, and offering more disaggregated data in the annually required 655 report, Congress can enhance its oversight role, rather than further undercutting it.
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