Post by Admin on Sept 13, 2019 3:08:57 GMT
70 Percent of Americans Say Arms Sales Make US Less Safe
Most Americans want the United States to maintain strong alliances overseas, but not through foreign arms sales, a key tactic used by the Obama and Trump administrations..
Those findings from a recent Chicago Council survey arrive as the White House has worked to loosen export restrictions on military drones and circumvented Congress to sell weapons to allies in the Middle East.
“Americans don’t like selling weapons to other countries,” said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Obama. They are more supportive to allied countries with one exception, he said. “Bipartisan majorities think that selling arms to Taiwan is a bad idea,” and the poll similarly found low support (38 percent) for using U.S. troops “if China invaded Taiwan.”
Seventy percent of those polled said “selling weapons to other countries” makes the United States less safe. Only 9 percent said it makes the United States more safe.
“There’s just a very strong negative bipartisan view that selling weapons is — it doesn’t make Americans safer, it’s not a good thing to do,” Daalder said, in Washington on Monday. “That said, if you would — I’m sure that if we change the way the questions get phrased, which is “Do you believe the United States should provide, sell military equipment to our allies so we can fight better together?” I’m pretty sure that we’ll get very high numbers saying yeah, it makes sense for our allies who are flying F-18s when we’re flying F-18s. But as an issue, the president in particular has raised weapons sales as sort of the be all and end all of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. The american people aren’t buying that one.”
Those findings from a recent Chicago Council survey arrive as the White House has worked to loosen export restrictions on military drones and circumvented Congress to sell weapons to allies in the Middle East.
“Americans don’t like selling weapons to other countries,” said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Obama. They are more supportive to allied countries with one exception, he said. “Bipartisan majorities think that selling arms to Taiwan is a bad idea,” and the poll similarly found low support (38 percent) for using U.S. troops “if China invaded Taiwan.”
Seventy percent of those polled said “selling weapons to other countries” makes the United States less safe. Only 9 percent said it makes the United States more safe.
“There’s just a very strong negative bipartisan view that selling weapons is — it doesn’t make Americans safer, it’s not a good thing to do,” Daalder said, in Washington on Monday. “That said, if you would — I’m sure that if we change the way the questions get phrased, which is “Do you believe the United States should provide, sell military equipment to our allies so we can fight better together?” I’m pretty sure that we’ll get very high numbers saying yeah, it makes sense for our allies who are flying F-18s when we’re flying F-18s. But as an issue, the president in particular has raised weapons sales as sort of the be all and end all of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. The american people aren’t buying that one.”
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