Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened. Foreign and defense policy In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran. Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel. In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. In July 2017, Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea. In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter