The State Department is declaring an emergency with the war in Iran to bypass Congressional approval and sell more than 20,000 bombs to Israel that are valued at nearly $660 million, according to two current U.S. officials and a former official. Israel is bombing Iran as part of a war that it started Feb. 28 with the United States to kill Iranian leaders and decimate the country’s ballistic missile program and nuclear sites, though Iran’s nuclear program was crippled by a U.S. attack last June.
The State Department issued a statement Friday night that said Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale” to Israel of 12,000 large bombs that are 1,000 pounds each. The Trump administration has not received authorization from Congress for the war in Iran.
The other parts of the sale include 10,000 bombs of 500 pounds each and 5,000 small-diameter bombs. These arms, along with services and accessories that are part of the sale, are valued at more than $500 million.
The State Department did not mention these details in the announcement, but two current U.S. officials and a former, Josh Paul, who worked on weapons transfers at the State Department, said they were part of the emergency sale. The current officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.
This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency.
In January, the State Department bypassed Congress to announce that it was sending four weapons systems to Israel valued at $6.5 billion total. The packages included Apache attack helicopters and combat land vehicles. The weapons sale had been in the informal review process in two Congressional committees for months, but the State Department decided to push through with the exports.
The United States gives $3.8 billion in aid to Israel each year that Israel then uses to buy weapons. Those weapons systems are often but not always made by American companies. Sometimes Israel pays for its own weapons purchases from U.S. companies.
In 2023, the Biden administration twice declared an emergency to send weapons to Israel. One package included 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition, and the second included artillery munitions. Those actions came after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel, which prompted Israel to bombard and invade Gaza.
The Biden administration also twice used the emergency provision to expedite arms shipments to Ukraine after Russia began a full-scale invasion of that country in 2022.
In the first Trump administration, the State Department declared an emergency involving Iran to sell $8.1 billion of munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The department’s inspector general scrutinized the 2019 action by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The bombs now being sent to Israel make up two packages of proposed sales that had been under informal review in Congress, but had not been approved by the two relevant committees. Some lawmakers have criticized going around Congress on arms deals.
“Today’s invocation of the Arms Export Control Act’s emergency authority to bypass congressional review for two munitions cases to Israel exposes a stark contradiction at the heart of this administration’s case for war,” said Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, who reviews arms transfers as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee.
“The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war,” he said in a statement. “Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.”
The company making the 1,000-pound bombs is Repkon USA, owned by Repkon, a Turkish company.
Both Israel and the United States are rapidly expending munitions and air defense interceptor missiles in the war with Iran.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
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