WASHINGTON — Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is joining with a Democratic committee chair’s effort to block President Trump from selling $750 million worth of jet engines to Turkey.
The bipartisan group has called for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government to be denied the US military equipment ahead of a NATO summit in early July. Typically, the chairs and ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees approve arms sales.
“As long as Turkey is under the leadership of Erdogan who aligns himself with Iran and Russia, harbors Hamas & remains the only NATO member to not sanction Russia, Turkey should NOT receive our best jets and military equipment,” Malliotakis posted on X.
Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement Wednesday, saying that the Trump administration was going to “once again bypass Congressional review for more than $700 million in defense articles to the Turkish military in yet another deeply troubling example of this administration’s open contempt for Congress’s oversight authority.”
“In this case, the State Department did not even attempt to justify its decision,” Meeks added. “It did not invoke any emergency authority, did not present a written rationale, and for months refused to make a good-faith effort to brief me on implications of the sale for the U.S.-Turkey relationship, Turkey’s continued possession of the Russian S-400 system, and other regional security concerns.”
Meeks continued: “It simply informed my office that it would immediately proceed with a formal notification of the sale.”
“These items will not be delivered for years, and the administration repeatedly ignored persistent requests for information and clarification on key aspects of US policy,” the ranking member also said.
“There can be no pretense that this was urgent or unavoidable. This was a deliberate choice to shut Congress out and to treat legitimate oversight as an inconvenience to be brushed aside.”
Asked about the jet engine sales, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he was “going to probably do something” for Erdogan that was “gonna make him very happy.”
“He’s a member of NATO,” Trump said, adding that his presence at the 36th NATO summit from July 7-8 was based on the Turkish leader’s hosting of the event.
“He was a prime candidate to go into the war with Iran — maybe on the Iran side, because he’s not a big fan of Israel,” the president noted. “I asked him to stay out. He stayed out.”
“Erdogan is a great leader, a very strong person,” he added. “Everything I’ve ever asked from him, he’s done.”
Reps for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and that committee’s Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reps for House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-Fla.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
