PHOTO: By ABC27

US President has extended the national emergency with respect to Lebanon for one year beyond the August 1 expiration date.

Iran Press/America: Donald Trump has extended the national emergency with respect to Lebanon for one year beyond the August 1 expiration date, citing what he claims as 'the nation's imports of increasingly deadly weapons from Iran', the White House said in a press release on Wednesday.

"Certain ongoing activities, such as Iran's continuing arms transfers to Hezbollah - which include increasingly sophisticated weapons systems - serve to undermine Lebanese sovereignty, contribute to political and economic instability in the region, and continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," the release said.

This is while In May 2019, the Trump administration issued an emergency declaration to push through an $8.1 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan without congressional approval.

the declaration provoked anger from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who have criticized civilian deaths caused by Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen.

“There is no emergency to the United States or to UAE or to Saudi Arabia regarding the war in Yemen,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.

Saudi Arabia, with the support of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and several other countries, has been conducting military aggression against Yemen since March 2015 and besieging it. The war in Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen has so far killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Yemenis.

Saudi military aggression has also left the poor country of Yemen in dire need of food and medicine. 

The United States first declared a national emergency with respect to Lebanon on August 1, 2007.

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