Ted Cruz Asks Trump To Submit Foreign Policy Deals As Treaties — Disallowing Biden To Reverse Policies Without Senate Approval

Senator Ted Cruz wants President Donald Trump to submit the foreign deals he’s implemented over the last four years as formal treaties to make it difficult for Joe Biden to make abrupt changes to these policies without the Senate approval.

The Texas lawmaker made the announcement as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — who will likely be sworn as the next president if Trump fails to overturn the election results — made public pronouncements hinting that he would be rejoining the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, among others, once he is president.

Senator Cruz sent a letter calling President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday to “submit Obama-Biden Iran Nuclear Deal & Paris Climate Agreement to Senate as Formal Treaties,” in a move that will likely tie the hands of the former VP in terms of reversing most if not all of the foreign policies of the Trump administration.

“Multiple previous administrations […] have undermined the Senate’s constitutional role by negotiating significant international agreements and then refusing to submit them to the Senate for its advice and consent. Most recently-and most egregiously-President Obama refused to submit either the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘Iran Deal’), or the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement (the ‘Paris Agreement’) to the Senate as a treaty,” Cruz wrote in his letter.

Obama-led foreign deals “doomed for defeat”

The Texas senator noted that the “only reason the Obama administration refused to submit these agreements to the Senate as treaties was that it knew that the agreements were deeply unpopular and doomed for defeat.”

“The Obama administration attempted to justify its decision to sideline the Senate by structuring the agreements in a way that allowed it to publicly assert that the agreements were not legally binding and therefore not treaties subject to the Senate’s advice and consent,” Cruz added.

He noted that the Trump administration “has rightly changed course as a matter of substantive policy by withdrawing from both the Iran Deal and the Paris Agreement” which he said was a “great accomplishment” for Americans.

Senator Cruz said these agreements “could and should have been submitted as treaties” given their sweeping scope and immense implications for American foreign and domestic policy. He said the Paris Agreement, for example, was lauded as the ‘most ambitious climate change agreement in history.’ The Iran Deal, meanwhile, was situated as ‘the most consequential foreign policy debate that our country has had since the invasion of Iraq.’”

US earlier pulls out of destructive deals

President Trump abandoned the Paris Agreement shortly after becoming President in July 2017, saying the deal was “all cost but no benefit” for the United States — being the biggest donor to the Green Climate Fund, while also being slapped with “onerous” energy restrictions that could cost the economy as much as 2.7 million jobs by 2025.

The administration also pulled out of the Iran Nuclear deal in 2018 with President Trump calling the agreement “defective at its core” and saying that time that the US government has “definitive proof” that the Iranian promise of a “peaceful” nuclear energy program was “a lie.”

“I urge you now also to remedy the harm done to the balance of powers by submitting the Iran Deal and the Paris Agreement to the Senate as treaties,” the Texas senator wrote.

“Only by submitting them to the Senate will the Senate be able to satisfy its constitutional role to provide advice and consent in the event any future administration attempts to revive these dangerous deals,” he added.