Define Executive Agreement

The term “executive agreement,” which is not widely used outside the United States, but has its foreign equivalent, is understood by the State Department as generally referring to any international agreement that comes into force with respect to the United States without the Council and Senate approval, which are constitutionally necessary for treaties. In particular, it concerns three types of agreements: those concluded on the basis of or in conformity with an existing contract; those that are subject to approval or implementation by Congress (“agreements between Congress and the Executive”); and those concluded within and in accordance with the constitutional powers of the President (“Single Executive Agreements”). None of these executive agreements is subject to the formal contractual process set out in Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2, of the Constitution. Executive Agreement, an agreement between the United States and a foreign government that is less formal than a treaty and is not subject to the constitutional requirement of ratification by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly give a president the power to enter into executive agreements. However, it may be authorized to do so by Congress or it may do so on the basis of the power to manage foreign relations granted to it. Despite the question of the constitutionality of executive agreements, the Supreme Court ruled in 1937 that they have the same force as treaties. As executive agreements are concluded on the authority of the President-in-Office, they do not necessarily bind his successors. Most executive agreements were made on the basis of a treaty or an act of Congress. However, presidents have sometimes entered into executive agreements to achieve goals that would not have the support of two-thirds of the Senate. For example, after the outbreak of World War II, but before the United States entered the conflict, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt negotiated an executive agreement that granted the United Kingdom 50 overflow destroyers in exchange for 99 years of leases for some British naval bases in the Atlantic. In the United States, executive agreements are concluded exclusively by the President of the United States….