Joe Biden argued that the $106 billion package would safeguard American interests for generations to come
Washington:
US President Joe Biden on Friday urged military aid to Ukraine and Israel in the form of a massive $106 billion national security package, but Republican paralysis in Congress means this will hit an immediate wall.
Biden’s demand came a day after he drew a direct link between the Hamas attack on Israel and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to convince Americans that the United States must show global leadership.
The 80-year-old Democrat argued in an impassioned Oval Office speech that the enormous sums involved — a total of $105.85 billion, including $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel — undermine U.S. interests would safeguard future generations. .
But Biden’s request comes at a time when the US House of Representatives remains in chaos, with Republicans, who hold a slim majority, in their worst crisis in decades and unable to elect a speaker.
“The world is watching and the American people rightly expect their leaders to come together and deliver on these priorities,” Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a letter to Congress.
“I urge Congress to address these in the coming weeks as part of a comprehensive, bipartisan agreement.”
Biden’s mega-relief package brings together a host of disparate crises in the hope that an appeal to American national unity will help Republicans in the House of Representatives emerge from their dysfunction.
And it’s throwing an olive branch to Republicans in the form of $6.4 billion in funding for the migration crisis at the southern border with Mexico — a central concern for the right-wing party.
‘Beacon’
The package also includes $7 billion to counter China and strengthen allies in the Asia-Pacific region, and more than $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza, Ukraine and Israel.
Most importantly, the huge funding demand is an attempt to bolster declining support for Ukraine by tying it to funding for Israel – which enjoys broad bipartisan support.
A growing number of Republicans – and American voters – oppose increasing the $43.9 billion in security assistance the United States has pledged to Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A previous request for aid to Ukraine stalled when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in an uprising in September.
In the seventeen days since, no Republican has received enough votes to replace him. The last person to try, Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan, has already failed twice.
Biden’s speech on Thursday drew the link between the wars in Ukraine and Israel, as part of a vision of the US as a “beacon to the world” against “terrorists” like Hamas and “tyrants” like Putin.
The Kremlin on Friday denounced Biden’s comments.
“We do not accept such a tone in relation to the Russian Federation, in relation to our president,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov said such “rhetoric is hardly suitable for responsible state leaders, and can hardly be acceptable to us.”
US efforts to “contain” Russia would prove ineffective, he added.
Biden was due to welcome European Union leaders Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen to the White House later Friday at a summit that would deliver a message of unity over the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
