Democratic and Republican senators reached an agreement on Sunday February 4 to release new aid to Ukraine as well as to Israel and to toughen the migration policy of the United States, a text that President Joe Biden called for “ adopt quickly “.
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The deal, totaling $118.3 billion in funding, includes $60 billion in aid for Kiev’s war effort against Russia’s invasion and $14.1 billion for Israel, according to a summary released by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray.
It also provides an envelope of 20.2 billion dollars for reforms of migration policysubject of fierce debate between Republican and Democratic negotiators.
Read alsoThe puzzle faced by Europeans and Americans in helping Ukraine financially
Increasingly salty note
“ We reached a bipartisan national security agreement that includes the strongest and fairest migration reforms in decades. I strongly support it », Reacted Joe Biden, in a press release, urging Congress to “ adopt quickly “. It is necessary to “ bring it to my desk so that I can promulgate it immediately “, he added.
The adoption of this text, however, is far from guaranteed, with more and more Republicans in the House of Representatives opposing the sending of new funds to Ukraine.
The United States, by far the primary military supporter of Ukraine, has been struggling for several months to validate this envelope, insistently demanded by President Joe Biden and his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. Two years after the start of a bogged-down war – and more than $110 billion already released by Congress – Republicans, in particular, began to find the bill too high.
The vote of the House of Representatives is not assured
Aware that the sense of emergency has faded in Washington since the start of the war in 2022, President Biden asked Congress in October to combine his request for aid for Ukraine with another of approximately Israel, an ally of the United States in war against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. He also wanted to include a drastic reform of the United States’ migration policy, a politically hot topic, which is all the more so in the middle of an election year.
To be adopted, this envelope must be approved in the Senate, where it should in theory obtain the support of elected officials from both parties, then in the House of Representatives. This is where things get complicated. Its president, speaker Mike Johnson, a loyal supporter of Donald Trump, warned at the end of January that as things stand, everyone will vote in his room on new funding for aid to Ukraine as well as for strengthening the border. with Mexico was “ stillborn “.
Since the start of the conflict, Moscow has been banking on the running out of Western aid, and any hesitation from kyiv’s allies reinforces Russia’s belief that its bet will be a winner. At the end of December, the United States released its last tranche of available military aid to Ukraine.
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(AFP)