Finally, President Biden shared some good news with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. When Mr. Biden picked up the phone to call Mr. Zelensky at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, both men were celebrating the breakthrough in Congress leading to the first major new U.S. military aid to Ukraine in 16 months. is.
A White House statement said Biden used the 30-minute call to “underscore America's enduring commitment to supporting Ukraine” against the Russian aggressor and to “stop arms distribution.” He promised to reopen as soon as possible. The timing was lucky for a grateful Zelenskiy. He told Biden that a Russian missile attack had just destroyed a television tower in Kharkiv.
The House's passage of the landmark $95 billion foreign aid package has given Biden a much-needed boost at a time when his credibility and U.S. leadership are being questioned on the world stage. The president has been pledging unstinting support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan for months, but has been unable to deliver on Capitol Hill. Now, at last, he has airplane loads of artillery shells, air defense missiles, and other ammunition to back up his words.
“This was a historic victory for President Biden and for American global leadership,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said in an interview. “This was a moment when both our allies and adversaries were looking to see if we could help the Ukrainian people in their time of need.”
Michael Allen, who served as national security adviser to President George W. He added that there should be pressure on allies to take a more leadership role.
“This is a victory for the United States, which has been plagued by populism and isolationism, and after months of talk that America has lost its way,” he said. “Biden now has new political capital, if he chooses to use it, to intimidate more Europeans into more support for Ukraine and NATO.”
The relief among White House officials has been palpable since the House passed the package, including $61 billion for Ukraine, by a bipartisan majority on Saturday. $26 billion for humanitarian assistance in conflict zones like Israel and Gaza. and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. Not only did they finally break the aid logjam, they also held out hope that they had avoided a broader war in the Middle East, at least for now.
With the support of European and Arab allies, Israel and the American defense of Israel defeated nearly all Iranian artillery fire, demonstrating strong regional coordination against Tehran. Israel's decision to postpone Biden's appeal for restraint in a token retaliation allowed both sides to set back what could have escalated into a full-scale regional conflagration.
Biden administration officials spotted at events around Washington over the weekend were in a decidedly better mood than they have been in months. Instead of being holed up in a situation room virtually 24 hours a day, as they have been in recent days, some stressed-out national security officials are taking a few hours off to play in a casual tennis tournament called the Kangaroo Cup. Some even participated. Australian Ambassador Kevin Rudd's residence.
But while the passage of the security aid was significant, some officials and analysts remain concerned it is only a temporary respite as former President Donald J. Trump waits. There is. Trump, who has long expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, has vowed that he will not support Ukraine if he wins in November.
In fact, he has said he intends to encourage Russia to attack NATO members that do not spend enough on their own military, a comment that alarmed European capitals about the future of the 75-year-old alliance. evoked. It also did not go unnoticed that while all House Democrats voted in favor of aid to Ukraine, more Republicans voted against it than in favor.
“I think this aid bill restores some confidence in the United States and restores our ability to actually get some things done in a deeply divided Congress, but of course this is the end of policy. There's some uncertainty as to whether that's the case,” said Kathryn Stoner, a Russia scholar at Stanford University. In conversations with Ukrainian political and civic leaders, he said, “We have become newly aware of the fact that things could get even worse for Ukraine if President Trump is elected in November.'' Stated.
The level of concern among America's allies is alarming. In conversations and interviews in recent months, government officials from more than a dozen European countries, including ministers and prime ministers across the political spectrum, have universally expressed concern about the prospect of Mr. Trump returning to whiteness, and in some cases expressed a situation bordering on panic. House. Some are already discussing how Europe will have to fend for itself without being able to rely on the United States.
Mr. Trump has made it clear in recent days that he is more eager to put pressure on his American friends than Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump did not intervene to block House Speaker Mike Johnson from pushing the Ukraine aid through the House, but he did signal that he believed the United States was carrying too much of a burden.
“Why can't Europe match or match the resources the United States spends to help countries in desperate need?” he wrote on social media last week.
In fact, by the time the new aid package reached Biden's desk, Europe was contributing more to Ukraine than the United States. As of January, European Union agencies had provided $93.2 billion in military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, compared to a total of $74.3 billion, according to figures compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations.
In terms of military aid alone, Germany, the United Kingdom, and more than a dozen other European countries have collectively received between $60.4 billion and $46.3 billion from the United States. Measured by total aid as a percentage of each country's economy, the United States was the 20th largest donor, behind 17 European countries, the European Union, and Canada.
Elbridge Colby, a former senior Pentagon official considered a possible national security pick in the new Trump administration, said the former president wanted Europe to stand up for itself. Ta. “President Trump's claim is, in fact, that Europe's interests in Ukraine are greater than ours, which is clearly true.” he wrote on social media. “Given the United States' stated priority is China, they should naturally take the lead, but we are not prepared for that.”
The last major aid package for Ukraine passed Congress in December 2022, when Democrats were in power in their final weeks. Biden has called for additional aid to Ukraine since August, including funding for Indo-Pacific priorities to counter China. He added aid to Israel to his call in October after a Hamas-led terrorist attack that Israeli authorities said killed about 1,200 people. The package passed Saturday also includes funding for humanitarian relief in places like Gaza, where local health officials say more than 33,000 people have died in Israel's military operation against Hamas. There is.
The Senate will pass it this week and send it to Biden for his signature. In addition to Zelenskiy, the president called European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday and said, “Ukraine's fight for freedom needs sustained international support,'' according to a White House statement. “Is it important?” he emphasized.
The celebratory mood in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and much of Congress reflected how taxing it was for the president and his allies. Mr. Biden's advisers had long been extremely confident that they would eventually get the money to fight Russia, but there were many moments when it looked like that would not happen.
The risks to the president's credibility were considerable. Mr. Biden had vowed to support Ukraine “for as long as necessary” after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, but he had begun to change his language to pledge to help “as much as possible.” Now he can do that for a little while longer.
