The US Senate on Tuesday adopted an envelope validating $60 billion for Ukraine and funds for Israel and Taiwan, but the text is currently doomed to failure, with Republicans in the House of Representatives refusing to accept it. examine as is.
The upper house of the American Congress, with a Democratic majority, validated this envelope of 95 billion dollars at dawn on Tuesday, painfully negotiated over the last few months.
This bill plans to release more than 60 billion dollars for Ukraine and 14 billion for Israel as well as funds for Taiwan, a strategic ally of the United States.
But the supporters of former President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans are in the majority, showed on Monday evening their refusal to examine this text as it stands. And without Republican support, the text can go nowhere.
The Republican leader of the House, Mike Johnson, close to Donald Trump, swept aside this bill, accusing it Monday evening of remaining “silent on the most urgent problem facing our country”, namely the migration crisis in the border between the United States and Mexico.
“In the absence of any modification” from the Senate on the subject, “the House of Representatives will continue to work according to its own will on these important issues,” he assured in a press release.
The conservatives condition the adoption of new aid to kyiv on a toughening of the immigration policy that they have been demanding for a long time. A first text was presented to the Senate with a strengthening of border controls, but was rejected by the Republicans, who did not consider it firm enough.
” Save lives “
“The Senate is aware of the responsibilities in terms of American national security and will not neglect them,” retorted Tuesday after the vote the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, in a press release.
“Given the strong bipartisan support that we have had here in the Senate with this vote, I believe that if “Speaker Johnson” introduced this bill in the House, it would pass with the same strong support,” added the Democratic leader of the senators, Chuck Schumer, in the hemicycle.
Democrats and Republicans have been at war for months in the US Congress over the issue of aid to Ukraine and, with the November presidential election approaching, the equation has turned into a long-distance standoff between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, both candidates.
“More urgent problem”
The resumption of military assistance to Ukraine, an ally of the United States and at war with Russia for almost two years, which has been interrupted since the end of December, depends on this text negotiated in Congress.
The Democrats are, in the vast majority, in favor. The Republicans are divided between interventionist hawks, pro-Ukraine, and lieutenants of Donald Trump, who are much more isolationist.
The adoption of the text in the Senate was welcomed Tuesday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who said he was “grateful” to the American senators.
“For us in Ukraine, continued American aid saves human lives from Russian terror” while “we are fighting for freedom, democracy,” he declared on X (formerly Twitter) .
So what does it matter that Democratic President Joe Biden supports the project, 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.
Mike Johnson, like many Republicans in Congress, is following directives from Donald Trump, who said on Saturday that the United States must “stop giving money without expecting to be reimbursed”.
The Republican candidate also threw a wrench in the pond, assuring that he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO countries if they did not pay their share, which caused a shower of critics on the other side of the Atlantic.