Aid to Ukraine | What will the House with a Republican majority do?

In December 2022, the House of Representatives of the American Congress adopted an envelope of 45 billion euros in aid to Ukraine struggling with the Russian invasion. However, this sum has almost been entirely distributed. What will the House, whose control has passed to the Republicans, do now? The Press discussed it with three experts.

On December 23, 2022, the House of Representatives adopted by 225 votes against 201 an omnibus law allowing the government to spend 1.7 trillion in expenditures for its various programs until the end of the fiscal year (September 30).

In the lot, there was a sum of approximately 45 billion reserved for military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, ie 7 billion more than requested by the White House. The Democrats congratulated each other.

But following the November 2022 midterm elections, control of the House passed to Republicans on January 3, 2023. And the sum set aside for Ukraine is about to be reached. There are a few billion left in the fund, after which Congress will have to vote on a new envelope.

But… will he? What will the position of the Republicans be? The subject has returned to several American media in recent weeks.

“A proxy conflict” between Americans and Russians

For Rafael Jacob, associate researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair, there is no doubt that the Congress will reiterate its support for Ukraine. And it should stay that way until the presidential election in November 2024, he believes.

“I would be flabbergasted to see the Chamber do otherwise,” he said in an interview. Even if we now have a House with a Republican majority, you still have to understand that the very clear majority of members of Congress, in the Senate as well as in the House of Representatives, is clearly behind Ukraine and especially in opposition to Russia. »

Russia ? Yes, answers Mr. Jacob. In the official press lines, American aid to Ukraine is presented as “a fight against autocracy”, continues the expert, but underlying it, we are witnessing “a conflict by proxy” between Americans and Russians.

This is also confirmed by Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research and fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington.

“Even though the Republicans are desperate to weaken the Biden administration, neither Kevin McCarthy [président de la Chambre des représentants] nor Mitch McConnell [leader de la minorité républicaine au Sénat] does not have a MAGA position [lire : proche de l’ex-président Donald Trump] in their way of looking at war,” he says.

Obstacles on the horizon

In his most recent public appearances, Mr. Trump remained nebulous about his position on Ukraine and repeated that he was able to resolve the conflict in 24 hours.

The Republicans could try to negotiate a reduction in the budgets allocated to Ukraine, but certainly not to reduce them to zero, believes Mr. O’Hanlon.

Associate professor in the department of political science at Northwestern University in Illinois, Laurel Harbridge-Yong believes that the passage of new legislation could come up against more obstacles than in December 2022.

“The Chamber plays the role of guardian of the legislation and it is obviously easier when the majority of this Chamber is from the same party as the president,” she said. Now, a wing of Republicans, the House Freedom Caucus [44 représentants ultraconservateurs, selon les plus récents décomptes] is very averse to spending. This makes negotiations more difficult, especially with the Democratic-majority Senate. »

“From one chamber to another, the priorities are not the same,” she continues. Republicans in the House could adopt an envelope for Ukraine while cutting elsewhere, in one or more programs dear to the Democrats. But that would come up against the vote of the Senate. »

Whoops ! We found 6 billion!

Moreover, American media recently announced that the Pentagon, which distributes American military aid in Ukraine, recently discovered that it has an additional 6.2 billion at its disposal to help the country with the yellow and blue flag, and this, at the following… an accounting error.

In their scholarly calculations, the military services would indeed have used the replacement costs rather than the book value of the equipment that was withdrawn from Pentagon inventory and sent to Ukraine.

The new date is June 20. Note that a month earlier, the evaluation of the error was 3 billion, to be later revised to 6.2 billion.

“The Pentagon has some pretty creative ways of finding billions of dollars lying around,” laughs Rafael Jacob of the discovery.

Since the start of the war, the US government has spent approximately US$113 billion in aid to Ukraine.

With Politico, The Washington PostCNN, Associated Press and The Hill