Joe Biden on Tuesday alerted US Congress officials of the “terrible” cost of not voting for new financial aid of $60 billion for Ukraine, which Republican elected officials oppose.
“As far as Ukraine is concerned, I think the need is urgent,” declared the American president from the Oval Office of the White House, where he received officials from the House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday.
“The consequences of daily inaction in Ukraine are terrible,” lamented the democrat at the start of this meeting.
Joe Biden received the leaders of both chambers of Congress, the conservative President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and the Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, and, for the Senate, Chuck Schumer on the Democratic side, and Mitch McConnell on the Republican opposition side.
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.
Because in the House of Representatives looms the shadow of Donald Trump, the ultra favorite of the Republicans for the November election. He opposes aid to Ukraine and first calls for tougher immigration legislation.
“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.
“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. »
“History is watching us. The clock is ticking,” Joe Biden 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”.
The White House, however, announced on Tuesday that “the United States will not send soldiers to fight in Ukraine”, while French President Emmanuel Macron raised the specter of sending ground troops the day before.
Joe Biden believes that “the path to victory” will go through military aid blocked by Congress, said Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
Short term
The president, who hopes to be re-elected to the White House next November, must also face, just two months after the last agreement, a new threat of “ shutdown », the shutdown of the federal administration when no agreement on the budget could be found in time.
Part of the budget expires on Friday, the other a week later, 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 the Republicans get serious, the “shutdown“Extremist Republicans 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 October 1.
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.