Chairman Mast Delivers Opening Remarks at Hearing on Reforming America’s Defense Sales
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing titled "Reforming America’s Defense Sales."
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-Remarks-
I'm not surprised, you know, to respond to this, if the administration has contempt for the oversight that congress does. Truthfully, I have contempt for the oversight that my colleagues have done in the past when they fund things like queering the map, drag shows in Ecuador, transgender operas, transgender musicals, transgender plays, transgender job fairs in places like Bangladesh. And the list goes on and on of just beyond stupidity programs that were going on. I'm not surprised that every American doesn't have contempt for the oversight that my colleagues on the left were doing to say, let's go out there and fund these ridiculous things.
But what's going on right now, what's being worked on right now, there should be no contempt for. I want to thank our witnesses —I'm going to get to know who they all are in just a couple of moments here— but I want to thank them for their work in this field. And what we need to be speaking about today is that today's foreign military sales process is a relic. That's why we came together. That's why I set up this arm sales task force to begin with, because it's a cold war relic and it hasn't worked for the requirements of modern times. What worked then, no longer meets the needs of what goes on today— a faster, more dangerous world.
In fact, in many cases, it actively undermines U.S. national security. It undermines our allies who face years long lead times for American weapons systems, which can force them to look elsewhere around the globe, which weakens U.S. influence, damages our defense industrial base, and it bolsters our adversaries. Those are the stakes of what's on the line right now.
Our ability to put weapons in the hands of our allies is at its core, is about deterring aggression and, when needed, defeating our enemies. That's what that emergency notification was about. Because in the past, my colleague to my left has quite literally withheld arms sales to Israel. And that's something that, at this moment, has no business going on. I would argue that in all of the other moments that this has gone on, it had no business going on whatsoever. And so, it was important that this took place. But we were, in fact, directly notified about the sales that took place on March 6th. Even though I'm sure I'll hear more of my colleagues say there was no notification and this never takes place. This takes place. And we are notified on March 6th, well before these transfers.
But to get back to the point of this hearing. For too long, our foreign military sales process has impeded American arms manufacturers from getting advanced weapons into the hands of our allies at speed. That's what has to take place. That's what we have to fix going forward in the future to be as agile as what we need to be.
President Trump has recognized that vulnerability. He signed a series of executive orders to overhaul foreign military sales and acquisition systems, prioritizing exactly what I just spoke about: prioritizing speed, prioritizing innovation, prioritizing accountability. Congress, and this committee in particular, we have played an important role in advancing much needed reforms.
Like I mentioned, Rep. Zinke and his work on this, bringing to bear all of his expertise from a career in the military at our highest level of special operations. Last year, I did establish this bipartisan Foreign Arms Sales Task Force led by Chairman Zinke and led by Rep. Dean. Because of that work, Congress codified several major reforms outlined in President Trump's April 2025 executive order. But there's still more work to do. And that's what we want to get to as well: codifying more of those executive orders.
We are fortunate to have a President in office who understands the stakes and is taking the right steps to ensure America maintains its edge. And what's going on in Iran is a perfect example of that. We have had weakness year after year, decade after decade, where Americans killed by the hand of Iran have never been avenged, have never been responded to, to say, this takes place no longer. Until the first time, when President Trump put Qasem Soleimani into about five separate pieces on the side of an Iraqi tarmac. That was the first avenging that took place. And now, President Trump says Iran will not have any system that can reach out and touch an American, our allies, our forces in the region, all of their war against us, and that's what they've been doing against us every single day that they can. Looking for an opportunity to wage war against the United States of America. Their opportunity to do that comes to an end, period, full stop. I thank President Trump for having that commitment to defend our country that nobody else has had the commitment to do to date.
Again, I would say we are very fortunate to have a President who understands the stakes, is taking the right steps to ensure America maintains its edge, that if we are to go out there and have the greatest soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines anywhere on the face of this Earth that take to their core, to their heart, the seriousness of fulfilling their duty to serve this country, defend our people, defend our homeland, at the cost of the last breath in their lungs, in the last beat of their heart, that he's ensuring they have every single tool that they need to bring that fight to bear and have the best possible opportunity to reach mission accomplished and come home alive. That is what he works for at a higher and harder and faster level than anybody has done before.
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