executive agreement

English

Noun

executive agreement (plural executive agreements)

1. an agreement between the heads of government of two or more nations
   • 1963, Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956‎^[1], Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 282:

     I constantly urged my visitors to remember that I was sworn to uphold the Constitution, and therefore their determination to make certain that nothing should be done to destroy it could be no greater than my own. I began a practice of assuring visitors that I would support an amendment which would say only, but in unequivocal language, that any treaty or Executive agreement violating the Constitution would have no force and effect. Many who came to see me on the issue were satisfied by this answer, but the more knowledgeable of the opponents quickly protested that even such a simple amendment might give to the courts opportunity to make some unpredictable interpretation.

   • 1983, James C. H. Shen, “Beginnings of Endings”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 7–8:

     The Shanghai Communique which Nixon signed with Chou En-lai on February 28, at the end of the visit, presaged the "normalization of relations" between Peking and Washington seven years later. It was a most unusual document in diplomatic history in that it was signed between a U.S. President and the head of a government that had not been recognized. Normally, it would not have the force of even an executive agreement. And yet, as subsequent events proved, it turned out to be more binding on the U.S. Government than had it been a treaty ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. In the end it led to the abrogation, at the end of December, 1979, of the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China.

   • 2015 March 10, “Republican letter to Iran warns against deal with Obama”, in France 24‎^[3], archived from the original on 11 March 2015‎^[4]:

     The Constitution gives the president the power to negotiate treaties, which must then be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. But the president can also issue an executive order to finalise an accord without Senate consent; such executive agreements constitute about 90 percent of all US international treaties, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
     Any deal signed by US President Barack Obama but not congressionally approved would be "nothing more than an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and [Iran’s supreme leader] Ayatollah Khamenei", the senators wrote.
     "The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," they warned.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:executive agreement.

Further reading

• “executive agreement”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “executive agreement”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “executive agreement”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “executive agreement” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.