Treaties, Recognition and Diplomacy in World Politics
The Senate gives advice and consent to treaties by a two-thirds vote. CRS explains how that process works, and where executive agreements sit beside it.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2026 — When the president submits a treaty to the Senate, the document is referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. That is the starting point of a process the Congressional Research Service described in a report updated May 7, 2026. The committee may report the treaty favorably, unfavorably or without recommendation, or it may take no action. Treaties, unlike ordinary bills, remain available from one Congress to the next until the Senate disposes of them or agrees to return them to the president.
The Constitution assigns that role in Article II, Section 2, which gives the president the power to make treaties “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” provided two-thirds of the senators present concur. CRS notes that the Senate does not vote to “approve the treaty” in the way it passes a bill. After any amendments to the text, it takes up a resolution of ratification that typically states the Senate advises and consents to ratification, empowering the president to complete the process.
Advice, consent and the agreements that are not treaties
Reservations, understandings, declarations and other conditions can be attached to the resolution of ratification. Once the Senate has moved from the treaty text to that resolution, amendments that would change the treaty itself are no longer in order, CRS reports. The final vote on the resolution requires two-thirds of senators present and voting, with a quorum present. Other motions, including those proposing reservations, generally require only a simple majority. Debate remains subject to the Senate’s cloture rule.
If the Foreign Relations Committee has not reported a treaty when a Congress ends, the treaty stays before the committee in the next Congress. If the committee has reported a treaty but the Senate has not finished floor action, the treaty is recommitted and must be reported again before the floor may take it up.
Not every international commitment travels this path. A January 2016 CRS overview of separation of powers notes that the Senate provides advice and consent to treaties, while Congress controls appropriations and legislation needed to implement them. The same report records that the president and Congress may also reach agreements without a treaty, through executive agreements or through public law. How far those alternatives may go is itself a recurring dispute between the branches.
Recognition of foreign governments sits in that disputed zone. CRS listed it among contemporary separation-of-powers questions, asking whether Congress has a role in recognition for some purposes or whether the sole power of recognition lies with the president. The report does not treat that question as settled law. Readers should not infer a single rule from the existence of the debate.
Diplomacy, in this legal sense, is a shared file. The president acts as head of state and negotiates. The Senate decides whether a treaty receives the constitutionally required supermajority. Congress decides whether to fund what a treaty requires. The sequence is slower than a press statement, and that slowness is the point the framers wrote into Article II. Diplomatic process reporting continues on the international relations hub and the diplomacy page. Related analysis includes great-power competition in U.S. strategy and the Geopolitics section.
Sources
- Congressional Research Service: Senate Consideration of Treaties (98-384)
- Congressional Research Service: Separation of Powers: An Overview (R44334)
