In the first major foreign-policy address of his administration, U.S. President Joe Biden stated the U.S. government will end all “relevant arms sales” that support offensive operations in the war in Yemen. This decision reflects an ongoing State Department review of weapons sales to Gulf Arab states that had been approved late in the Trump administration. Then-President Donald Trump justified these sales in part as a job creator, and legislators may understandably worry about the consequences of this review for their constituents who work in the defense industry.
But jobs are a bad rationale for arms transfers on both economic and policy grounds. These weapons sales actually do not create many jobs, and even if they did, that shouldn’t be a consideration when it comes to whether these sales are approved. An extra job doesn’t make a sale more or less strategically or ethically compelling. After all, the bombs in these transfers are the same types causing undue civilian casualties in places like Yemen.
