(Washington) “We are running out of money and soon running out of time”: the White House sounded the alarm Monday on American military aid to Ukraine, threatened if Congress does not vote before the end of the year of new financing.
“I want to be clear: If Congress does not act, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to deliver more weapons and equipment to Ukraine and to supply materiel from American military stocks,” writes White House Budget Director Shalanda Young, in a letter addressed to the head of the House of Representatives, with a Republican majority.
“There is no magic funding available to address the emergency. We are running out of money and soon running out of time,” she warns.
At stake: an exceptional envelope of more than 100 billion dollars requested by Democratic President Joe Biden on October 20 from Congress to respond to the major emergencies of the moment, namely helping Israel and Ukraine, standing up to China and responding to arrivals of migrants at the southern border.
“Cutting off the arrival of American weapons and equipment would destroy Ukraine’s war effort,” assures the Budget Director in this urgent letter.
“Cutting off the flow of American weapons and equipment would destroy Ukraine’s war effort, it would endanger the advances made by Ukraine and it would increase the probability of Russian victories,” adds Shalanda Young.
“Our deliveries of military aid have already decreased,” she notes.
” It is now ”
“It’s not a problem for next year. Now is the time to help democratic Ukraine fight against Russian aggression,” concludes Shalanda Young.
The United States, the leading supplier of military aid to Ukraine, has been in the greatest budgetary limbo for months, due to endless parliamentary turbulence.
The Congress of the world’s leading power – made up of the Senate with a Democratic majority and the House of Representatives with a Republican majority – has still not voted on a final budget for the fiscal year which began on 1er last October.
The federal government is currently operating thanks to an emergency extension which will expire in mid-January.
When Joe Biden very solemnly requested his enormous budget package, including $60 billion for Ukraine, the House of Representatives found itself in chaos due to dissension within the Republican Party.
It has since acquired a leader, or “speaker”, Mike Johnson, which has allowed the resumption of budgetary debates.
Which promises to be difficult: a handful of right-wing elected officials in the House of Representatives, although they are very favorable to supporting Israel, want to cut military assistance to Kyiv.
Other conservative parliamentarians demand, in exchange for their support for the package for Ukraine, a clear tightening of American migration policy.