SENATE APPROVES $40B PACKAGE FOR UKRAINE
Emergency military, humanitarian aid bill brings total U.S. investment to $54 billion
The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine, moving quickly and with little debate to deepen the United States’ support for an increasingly costly and protracted fight against a brutal Russian invasion.
The measure, paired with an initial emergency infusion of aid to Kyiv that was approved in March, amounts to the largest package of foreign aid passed by Congress in at least two decades, bringing to roughly $54 billion the total American investment in the war in just over two months.
The lopsided vote, with just 11 senators in opposition — all Republicans — reflected the remarkable bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for a massive investment in Ukraine’s war effort, which propelled the bill through the House last week.
The speed with which it moved through Congress, where the leaders of both parties raised few questions about how much money was being spent or what it would be used for, was striking, given the gridlock that has prevented domestic initiatives large and small from winning approval in recent years.
A bill to provide billions for pandemic-response efforts in the United States is stalled, for instance, and Republicans on Thursday blocked one to provide $28 million to address the nationwide shortage of baby formula.
President Joe Biden was expected to quickly sign the Ukraine aid package into law. His administration and Ukrainian leaders have pressed hard for its swift enactment, warning that they would run out of American aid by Thursday if Congress failed to act.
“I applaud the Congress for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom,” Biden said in a statement.
Shortly after the vote, he announced that he would send another package of artillery, radars and other equipment to Ukraine.
The momentum behind the bill showed how the searing images of suffering in Ukraine, coupled with fears about Russian aggression spreading beyond the country’s borders, had — at least for now — overcome resistance from both parties to U.S. involvement in war abroad, even as isolationist voices off Capitol Hill have steadily
grown louder in their skepticism.
“We Americans — all of us, Democrat and Republican — cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand while Vladimir Putin continues his vicious belligerence against the Ukrainian people,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
When the House passed the spending package last week, a flurry of lobbying against the bill, led by archconservative media figures and activists, helped drive 57 Republicans to oppose it.
Determined to project strong bipartisan support for Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked for days leading up to the vote to tamp down on the anti-interventionist strain in his party, arguing that the United States needed to aid a young democracy standing between Russian aggression and the Western world.
The pinnacle of that effort came over the weekend, when McConnell traveled to Kyiv, Stockholm and Helsinki in what he said was partly a bid to push back on former President Donald Trump’s hostility toward NATO and the aid legislation itself. When Trump announced his opposition to the $40 billion package, McConnell said, he worried that he “could lose a lot more than 11” Republican votes.
The trip was designed “to convey to the Europeans that skepticism about NATO itself, expressed by the previous president, was not the view of Republicans in the Senate,” McConnell said. “And I also was trying to minimize the vote against the package in my own party.
“We have a sort of an isolationist wing. And I think some of the Trump supporters have sort of linked up with the isolationists — a lot of talk out in the primaries about this sort of thing. I felt this would help diminish the number of votes against the package. I think that worked out well.”
Most of the Republicans regarded as presidential prospects in 2024 — Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida — backed the legislation even in the face of opposition from right-wing organizations.
In a 24-minute speech on the Senate floor, announcing his vote Wednesday night, Cruz said he had carefully listened to a litany of arguments against the aid bill, including that it was too expensive and bloated with provisions unrelated to military aid, and that it was not in America’s security interest to counter Russia’s campaign when there were so many domestic problems at home.
But he had come to the conclusion, he said, that the assistance was worth supporting.
“There’s no doubt $40 billion is a large number, and although much of that spending is important — in fact, some of it is acutely needed in the military conflict — I would have preferred a significantly smaller and more focused bill,” Cruz said. “But our Ukrainian allies right now are winning significant victories with the weapons and training that we provided them already, and it is in our national interest for them to keep doing so.”
In the end, fewer than a dozen Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who is also regarded as a presidential contender, voted no. They cited concerns about sending billions of dollars abroad as the United States struggles with economic challenges of its own.
“Spending $40 billion on Ukraine aid — more than three times what all of Europe has spent combined — is not in America’s interests,” Hawley wrote on Twitter. “It neglects priorities at home (the border), allows Europe to freeload, short changes critical interests abroad and comes w/ no meaningful oversight.”
“That’s not isolationism,” he added. “That’s nationalism. It’s about prioritizing American security and American interests.”
Opponents of the legislation said they expected rising domestic discontent with the size of the aid packages to grow as the conflict deepened. Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, told senators this week that Putin is digging in for a long campaign and was counting on the United States’ resolve to support Ukraine flagging.
The dissenting votes in the House and Senate “set the table for what is going to be a very heated debate” in the fall, said Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, which lobbied against the bill.
The legislation that passed Thursday is substantially larger than the initial tranche of aid Biden had requested, a request that came only weeks after Congress had cleared a $13.6 billion aid package for Ukraine, roughly equally divided between military and humanitarian aid. The bill had a similar split.
It would allow Biden to authorize the speedy transfer of up to $11 billion of American weapons, equipment and defense supplies to Ukraine, and allocate about $9 billion to replenish that stockpile.
Transfers thus far have included relatively expensive weapons such as the 5,500 Javelin anti-tank guided missiles and 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles given to Kyiv, as well as less-costly munitions such as the 184,000 155-millimeter shells provided to Ukraine for a protracted artillery battle in Donbas.
The package also includes $8.8 billion for a dedicated fund intended to help Ukraine’s government continue to function, and $4.4 billion for international disaster assistance, part of an effort to stem the disruption to the global food chain as a result of the war.
Another $900 million would go to assistance for Ukrainian refugees, including providing trauma and support services, English language training, and housing.