Agreements submitted to Congress are treaties once they pass. A two thirds majority in the Senate, or a simple majority in both houses of congress are not treaties, but are agreements. Those continue through all administrations until they expire, or are abrogated. Remember, George W. withdrew us from the ABM treaty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty#US_withdrawal through the argument that the Soviet Union did not exist any longer. This cessation of the treaty was not submitted to Congress, but was legal if stupid.
Other treaties have an expiration date, like the Washington Treaty that prohibited naval build up that Japan pulled out of at the expiration date prior to World War II.
The truth is that any President can undo what a previous President has done. Walk away from treaties, ignore agreements, break the word of the President before. Anyone who has read any history knows this. The United States is hardly the first country to do it by the way. In fact, the United States walked away from our first Treaty while Washington was President. Seriously.
France helped the United States win the war of Independence. French support included weapons, training, and support from French Naval units. Shortly after we became a Constitutional Nation, France was thrown into a war of Independence. We had a treaty of alliance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-American_alliance Thomas Jefferson argued that this treaty required the United States to fight in favor of King Louis XVIII of France. The treaty of 1778 was utterly ignored by 1792 by the Americans, before the French Revolution I might add.
So America has a long tradition of demanding that treaties be upheld when it suits us, and ignoring them when it doesn't. An executive agreement has even less force of law, and is far more easily abrogated. The executive agreement is nothing more than a word of honor. It might survive until the President leaves office, it might not. Very few have survived through the next several presidents. One that has is the agreement that Kennedy made to refrain from invading Cuba if the Missiles were removed. No treaty was signed, but that word of honor has continued since 1962.
But don't think that abrogating treaties is something that hasn't happened much. It has. The end of the Vietnam war was by treaty. In the treaty, the United States stated that they would return to combat operations if the North invaded the South. We did not return to the fighting despite the south being overrun. Was that the right choice? Yes, and no. Yes, more senseless combat would have done nothing but delay the populist supported North from unifying the nation. No, because we said we would do something, and we didn't do it.
Taiwan wonders every time there is an election if the next President will decide that Taiwan is too much trouble to defend. One day, we may well be given the choice to fight for Taiwan's independence, or allow them to be overrun by the Chinese. I honestly have no idea what we will decide to do. Agreements that we would defend Taiwan not withstanding, it will be the decision of the President in office at that time what we do. I wouldn't be the one to place bets on either side of that one.
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