After months of blocking by Republicans, this week the United States Congress could make a decision on new military aid.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on April 16. in Washington Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/ap
SEDAN taz | After months of blocking military funding and aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific, there is movement in the US House of Representatives. On Monday afternoon (local time), Republican Speaker Mike Johnson announced that votes would be scheduled in the House this week, although not on the $95 billion package for all regions approved by the Senate with a bipartisan majority in February, but separately: Ukraine. Israel, Taiwan.
US President Joe Biden had been seeking help since October last year. The fact that Johnson always refused to vote meant that no aid from Washington had reached Ukraine since the end of the year, which is also clearly reflected on the front line in the east of the attacked country.
Initially, Republicans had demanded that any additional aid to Ukraine must be preceded by investments to protect the United States' southern border against the influx of migrants from Central and South America. And so the original package that was supposed to be approved by Congress included about $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, as well as several billion dollars for U.S. border security.
But that's where former President Donald Trump came into play: he encouraged representatives and senators of his party not to accept the package under any circumstances. Improvements in border protection could ultimately cost him his most important campaign issue.
Problem: different majorities for different packages
If Johnson were to call a vote on this, which would likely be won with a bipartisan majority against the will of Trump hardliners, hardliners like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would already threaten new impeachment proceedings. against the president. She had already submitted the application at the end of March as a preventive measure.
In several press appearances and in his State of the Union address to Congress in early March, President Biden implored the House of Representatives to finally act. The world is watching closely what the United States is doing and whether it is letting its allies down, Biden said.
Johnson himself used exactly these formulations, even if he was referring primarily to Israel after last weekend's Iranian attack. “We know the world is watching how we respond,” Johnson said. “We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders like Putin and Xi and Iran around the world, and they are looking to see if the United States will stand by its allies and its interests in the world, and we will.”
It is unclear exactly what the individual packages will look like and how majorities will be obtained. While the Republican right does not really want to provide more money to Ukraine, at best on credit, the progressive wing of the Democrats, led in the Senate by left-wing icon Bernie Sanders, resists more aid military for Israel. Sanders and some others also refused to pass the original package package in the Senate; This wing is even larger in the Democratic faction of the House of Representatives.
For Mike Johnson, it's a bold move he made this week. The majority of the Republican faction has currently been reduced to a single vote due to deaths and resignations, and the faction is internally divided. Seeking changing majorities for different financial packages requires a lot of experience and support. Johnson has neither.
However, like his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, ousting him would require the votes of many Democrats. That's why it's still complicated.