(Washington) Joe Biden receives Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday, in the hope of unlocking $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, at a time when a new budgetary paralysis threatens.
In the House of Representatives looms the shadow of Donald Trump, the ultra favorite of the Republicans for the November election, opposing this aid and first demanding a tightening of immigration legislation.
“The House of Representatives must now act to maintain budgetary support for Ukraine,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argued Tuesday morning from Brazil where she is participating in the G20 meeting.
The conservative Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has so far refused to examine this bill which plans to release new aid to Ukraine and Israel as well as a reform of the American migration system.
“Now is the time to act. President Johnson cannot let politics or blind obedience to Donald Trump get in the way,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who visited Ukraine last week, said in a letter.
Joe Biden will receive Tuesday in the Oval Office of the White House, at 11:30 a.m., the leaders of the two chambers of Congress, Mike Johnson and Democrat Hakeem Jeffries for the House of Representatives, and, for the Senate, Chuck Schumer on the Democratic side , and Mitch McConnell on the Republican opposition side.
“History is watching”
Ukrainian leaders on Sunday called on Western countries to maintain their military aid, two years after the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed confidence that the American Congress would release this aid: “I am sure that (the vote) will be positive. »
“This decision rests on the shoulders of one person – and history watches whether (House) Speaker Johnson will introduce this bill,” the White House security adviser told CNN. National, Jake Sullivan.
“History is watching us. The clock is ticking,” Joe Biden had already warned on Friday, after unveiling the largest salvo of American sanctions against Russia since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
“We cannot turn our back now” on Ukraine, he warned, stressing that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “counting on it”.
Short term
The president, who hopes to be re-elected to the White House, will also try to unite on another major subject, just two months after the last agreement: the threat of a “shutdown”, the shutdown of the administration federal government when no agreement on the budget could be found in time.
Part of the budget expires on Friday, the other the following Friday, the day after Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.
The right wing of the party has made no secret that it would be happy if this ax fell.
Unpaid air traffic controllers, shut down administrations, frozen food aid, unmaintained national parks… The list of potential consequences is long.
“Unless Republicans get serious, the extremist Republican shutdown will endanger our economy, increase costs, reduce security and cause untold suffering to the American people,” Chuck Schumer warned.
Mike Johnson countered that Senate Democrats are complicating negotiations with last-minute demands that were not previously included in their spending bills.
The deep disagreements between Democrats and Republicans, mainly among the most right wing, are forcing Congress to function in the short term, illustrating the dysfunctions within the American institutional apparatus.
Congress has not approved any of the 12 spending bills making up the 2024 federal budget, which began almost five months ago, on 1er october.
The solution could once again be short-term: maintain spending at current levels and extend the deadline, for the fourth time since the start of the budget year.