WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate will return to Washington on Tuesday to vote $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, taking the final steps in Congress to send legislation to President Joe Bidenafter months of delays and contentious domestic debate over the extent to which the United States should be involved abroad.
The $61 billion for Ukraine comes at a time when the war-torn country desperately needs new firepower and while Russia President Vladimir Putin intensified its attacks. The soldiers have fought to hold the front lines as Russia seized momentum on the battlefield and forced Ukraine to cede significant territory.
Bidencounted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday the U.S. send soon badly needed air defense weaponry. The House approved the package Saturday in a series of four votes, sending it back to the Senate for final approval.
“The president assured me that the package will be approved quickly and that it will be powerful, strengthening our air defense, as well as artillery and long-range capabilities,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The legislation would also send $26 billion in wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza, and $8 billion to combat China in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. In an effort to get more votes, Republicans in the House majority also added a bill to the package that could ban social media app TikTok in the US if its Chinese owners do not sell their stake within a year. The foreign aid part of the bill is similar to what the Senate approved in February with some minor changes and additions, including the TikTok law and a stipulation that $9 billion of economic assistance to Ukraine is in the form of “forgivable loans.”
The package has had broad support in Congress since Biden first requested the money last summer. But congressional leaders have faced fierce opposition from a growing number of conservatives who question U.S. involvement in foreign wars and argue that Congress should focus instead on increasing migration across the U.S.-U.S. border. the Mexico.
The growing divide in the Republican Party between conservatives who are skeptical of aid and more traditional “Reagan-era” Republicans who strongly support it could prove career-defining for the two top Republican leaders. Senate Republican Party Leader Mitch McConnell who made aid to Ukraine a top prioritysaid last month that it would resign from leadership after increasingly distancing himself from many at his conference on the subject and others. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who put the bills on the floor after praying for guidance, faces threats of dismissal after the majority of Republicans voted against them.
McConnell has made it clear that stopping Putin is important enough for him to stake his political capital.
“The national security of the United States depends on the willingness of its leaders to build, sustain and exercise hard power,” McConnell said after House approval on Saturday, adding: “I make no apology for taking these interconnected threats seriously or for urging a The Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress do the same.”
Johnson said after the House passed that “we did our job here and I think history will judge it well.”
The Senate could approve the aid package, now combined into a single bill, as early as Tuesday afternoon, if senators can reach an agreement on the timing of the vote. If Republicans who oppose the legislation decide to protest and prolong the process, a final vote would likely take place on Wednesday.
The legislation first passed the Senate in February with a wide vote of 70 to 29, and this time it could get even more votes after the House added the loan provisions. The idea for a loan started with former President Donald Trump, who opposed the aid.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime GOP hawk who voted against it in February because it was not accompanied by legislation to curb migration at the border, praised Johnson after the vote and indicated he will vote for it this time. “The idea that America will be safer if we shut down our friends and allies abroad is wrong,” he said on X.
The House’s revised package also included several Republican priorities that were acceptable to Democrats for the bill to pass. These include proposals that would allow the US to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations trafficking fentanyl; and could eventually ban TikTok in the U.S. if owner ByteDance Ltd. doesn’t sell. This bill has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate.
Opponents in the Senate, as in the House, will likely include some left-wing senators who oppose helping Israel, since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombed Gaza and killed thousands of civilians. Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders, an independent, and Peter Welch, a Democrat, voted against the package in February.
“This bill provides Netanyahu with an additional $10 billion in unrestricted military aid for his horrific war against the Palestinian people,” Sanders said on X shortly before the vote. “This is unfair.”
