The presidential election is only nine months away, but Donald Trump’s influence is already being felt very concretely: the former president is threatening, via his allies in Congress, to bury this week any future American aid to Ukraine.
The ax fell just minutes after the text, the result of long months of negotiations in the Senate, was revealed to the public.
The bill, which provides 60 billion US dollars (81 billion CA$) for kyiv, 14 billion (19 billion CA$) for Israel and a reform of the American migration system, is “stillborn”, a decided Mike Johnson, the leader of the House of Representatives, a close friend of Donald Trump.
“Horrible bill”
Never mind that Democratic President Joe Biden supports the plan, or that he urged Congress to “pass it quickly.” In these negotiations, it is his predecessor and probable rival in the presidential election who has the last word.
Without the support of Republicans in the House, most of them loyal to Donald Trump, the text cannot go anywhere.
To pass, this major bill must be approved by both houses of Congress. Democrats have a majority in the Senate, but Republicans are in control in the House.
Two years after the start of a bogged-down war – and more than 110 billion dollars already released by Congress – many Republicans are calling for no longer validating a single cent for Ukraine.
They are mostly following directives from Donald Trump, who claims that if he were re-elected in November, he would resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” — without really explaining how.
Monday morning, the former leader did it again.
“Don’t be STUPID!!! », Launched the Republican candidate to the elected officials of his party, believing that “only an idiot, or a Democrat from the radical left, would vote for this horrible bill”.
Beyond this simple text, the entire future of American aid to Ukraine is in danger.
The text unveiled Sunday was seen as one of the few likely to be adopted with votes from both parties. The window for action before the US presidential election in November now appears tiny, if not non-existent.
Last tranche released in December
Since the start of the conflict, the Kremlin has been banking on the decline in Western aid, and any hesitation from kyiv’s allies reinforces Russia’s belief that its bet will be a winner.
The United States, by far the primary military supporter of Ukraine, released its last tranche of available military aid for Ukraine at the end of December.
They have been struggling for several months to release new funds, insistently demanded by President Joe Biden and his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian leader’s last two visits to Washington, in September and December 2023, were, in this regard, unsuccessful.
Aware that the sense of urgency has faded in Washington since the start of the war in 2022, President Biden asked Congress in October to combine his request for aid for Ukraine with another for Israel, an ally. of the United States at war with Hamas.
But also to a drastic reform of the migration policy of the United States, a politically hot topic, which is all the more so in the middle of an election year.
All, obviously in vain.