- By Anthony Zurcher
- BBC News, Washington
Image source, Getty Images
After months of delay, the US House of Representatives is set to vote this weekend on tens of billions of dollars in US military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Both measures have staunch opponents in Congress, however, and their hopes for passage rest on a fragile bipartisan coalition to overcome enormous procedural and legislative hurdles.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was determined to put the issue to a vote, even though it could jeopardize his power.
The vote on Ukraine will be closely watched in kyiv, which has warned of the urgent need for new support from its allies as Russia makes steady progress on the battlefield.
The House is expected to vote on final passage Saturday, and the Senate could approve the package as soon as this weekend. President Joe Biden has pledged to sign it.
What’s in the aid bills?
Mr Johnson’s foreign aid proposal provides $60.8bn (£49bn) to Ukraine, $26.4bn to Israel and $8.1bn to the Indo-Pacific region , including Taiwan. The House of Representatives will vote on each item individually, raising the possibility that some items will be approved and others will fail.
The President is also voting on a fourth bill, which includes requiring Chinese company ByteDance to divest from the social media app TikTok, authorizing the sale of frozen Russian assets and imposing new sanctions on Russia, Iran and China.
All adopted projects will be grouped into a single bill which will then have to be approved as a whole by the Senate before arriving on the president’s desk.
Mr Johnson also promised to introduce an immigration reform bill containing provisions favored by conservative Republicans, in a bid to win their support for the aid package.
But the border bill appears unlikely to pass because it would require support from two-thirds of the House, the Washington Post reports.
Why were they retained?
Opinion polls suggest that a growing number of Republicans oppose any new aid to Ukraine. Some liberals are against military support for Israel. While those sentiments weren’t enough to stop the U.S. Senate from passing legislation supporting both countries in February, the situation was different in the House.
Mr. Johnson has a slim majority in the House and a handful of conservatives have threatened to push for his removal if he supports new aid to Ukraine. The effort, led by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, has two other supporters so far: Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona.
So far, the President has been reluctant to challenge his right-wing critics. On Wednesday, however, he reversed course, saying his goal was to “do the right thing and let the issues fall where they may.”
Meanwhile, left-wing Democrats who oppose Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war said they would not allow the United States to continue to be complicit in a human rights catastrophe. ‘man. The Israel aid bill contains $9 billion in humanitarian aid, which could help win over some reluctant Democrats.
By allowing separate votes on aid to Israel and Ukraine, Mr. Johnson hopes to allow each lawmaker to vote against provisions they don’t like without derailing the entire effort.
Biden administration officials have warned that the situation in Ukraine is dire. The Russian army is running low on ammunition and morale is low as the Russian army gains ground.
“There is a very real risk that the Ukrainians will lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024, or at least put [Russian President Vladimir] “Putin is in a position where he can essentially dictate the terms of a political settlement,” CIA Director William Burns said Thursday during a speech in Texas.
In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said his country needed new support “yesterday, not tomorrow, not today” and warned that Ukraine would fall without the aid. American.
The situation of the Israeli army is very different from that of the Ukrainian army. But Mr Biden said the country’s high-tech air defenses – which suffered their most fearsome test in last weekend’s Iranian missile and drone attack – needed to be replenished.
“This is a pivotal moment,” Mr. Biden wrote Wednesday in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece calling on the House of Representatives to act.
So will they pass?
Late Thursday night, Democrats joined with Republicans allied with Mr. Johnson to ensure that the aid legislation clears a formidable procedural hurdle in the House Rules Committee, despite dissent in the ranks conservatives.
On Friday morning, a similar coalition of pro-aid Democrats and Republicans voted in the full House 316-94 to hold debate and final votes on the legislation Saturday afternoon. This comfortable margin clearly indicates that a large bipartisan majority in the House is on track to approve the package.
Democratic support could also give Mr. Johnson a political lifeline, as his strategy of bypassing hard-core conservatives in his party to pass legislation could prompt them to follow through on their threats to force a vote on his impeachment.
A president having to rely on the support of the minority party, especially for procedural votes, is rare in modern congressional history. But Mr. Johnson’s grip on power is tenuous, and lawmakers who oppose him and his attempt to provide aid to Ukraine occupy key positions within the House power structure. .
Speaking to reporters on Friday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Mr. Johnson had had to deal with a “very undisciplined” group of Republicans and praised him for working to bring aid to Ukraine to a vote.
Democrats may be hesitant to offer aid to Mr Johnson, but the prospect of providing further aid to Ukraine – a top foreign policy priority for their party and for Mr Biden – could be worth it. penalty.
And this effort appears to be about to bear fruit.
