# Executive Agreement **Status: stub — expand.** An international commitment made by the United States **without** the ⅔ Senate advice and consent that Article II, § 2 requires for a treaty. Three families: - **Congressional-executive agreement** — approved by simple majorities of both chambers, before or after the fact. The vehicle for the trade architecture: [[NAFTA]], [[USMCA]], and the [[World Trade Organization]] agreements were all passed this way rather than as treaties. - **Executive agreement pursuant to a treaty** — implementing arrangements authorized by an existing ratified treaty. - **Sole executive agreement** — the President acting alone on claimed Article II authority. The narrowest legal footing and the most contested. Distinct again from **political commitments**, which are not binding under international law at all — the [[Paris Agreement]] and the [[JCPOA]] were structured this way precisely so no Senate vote would be needed, which is also why each could be exited by memorandum. The structural point: the overwhelming majority of American international commitments since 1945 are executive agreements, not treaties. The Article II track is now the exception. The [[Case-Zablocki Act]] is Congress's response — a reporting requirement rather than an approval requirement. ## See also - [[How a Treaty Is Made and Ratified]] - [[Case-Zablocki Act]] - [[Bricker Amendment]] - [[Unitary Executive Theory]]