Congress approves a $95 billion assistance package for Israel and Ukraine

Congress approves a $95 billion assistance package for Israel and Ukraine

The US Senate has given its approval to a $95 billion (£76 billion) foreign aid package that includes military assistance to Taiwan, Israel, and the Ukraine.

We anticipate that on Wednesday, President Joe Biden will sign the measure into law.

The US House of Representatives approved a proposal on Saturday, and the Senate supported it on Tuesday night.

The Pentagon claims that the $61 billion in military help for Ukraine may begin arriving "within days" of the conflict-torn country's request.

With a bipartisan vote of 79-18, it passed.

"Critical legislation [that] will make our nation and world more at ease as we support our friends who are protecting themselves against terrorists like Hamas as well as tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," said Mr. Biden in a statement late on Tuesday.

"After more than six months of hard work and several turns and turns in the road, America sends an invitation to the entire world: we will not turn around and give up on you," said Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, responded to the vote by saying it "reinforces America's role as a beacon of democracy as well as leader of the free world".

A handful of conservatives opposed to further money for Ukraine blocked the House of Representatives from voting on a similar aid package that the Senate had approved in February.

Republicans and Democrats in the lower house banded together last week to get around this resistance.

In the end, they settled on a package bill that included the foreign assistance, fresh penalties against China, Iran, and Russia, legislation to seize Russian assets held by Western institutions, and a clause requiring the Chinese business ByteDance to sell the well-known social media platform TikTok.

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A majority of Republicans in the House voted against the foreign assistance bill on Saturday.

A few Senate Republicans who opposed any more help to Ukraine also rejected the measure.

Along with two Democrats and independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who opposed giving Israel additional offensive weaponry, fifteen people voted against the measure.

"More funding for Ukraine's budget will only exacerbate the crisis and result in more casualties," said Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday.

"No one at the White House, the Pentagon, or the state department can put what victory looks like in this fight."

Ukraine's military, which have recently struggled with a lack of ammunition and air defense equipment, could get a major boost from the assistance package.

In the most recent of many drone and missile attacks, Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, had two casualties on Tuesday, according to the authorities, in a residential neighborhood.

Oleksandr Pivnenko, the commander of Ukraine's National Guard, said he anticipated a Russian military effort to attack the city, which is close to the Russian border.

The US provided Ukraine with more than $40 billion in military assistance between February 2022 and January 2024, according to German research group Kiel Institute.

Assistance to Taiwan and Israel

The foreign assistance package that was approved on Tuesday includes $17 billion for Israel and $9 billion for the benefit of people suffering in war areas worldwide, including Gaza's Palestinian population.

To "counter communist China," an additional $8 billion has been set aside for friends in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan.

In response to the vote, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz expressed gratitude to the leaders of Congress for their "unwavering commitment to Israel's security".

"Israel and the United States stand together in the fight toward terrorism, defending democracy and our shared values," he said.

Israel already receives $3.8 billion in military funding annually from the US.

A spokesman for the Chinese government described the military assistance for Taiwan as a "serious violation of the one-China principle" that would "send the wrong signal to the supportive of independence separatist forces" in Taiwan. This was happening over in Asia.

"We urge the US to take practical actions to fulfil their dedication not to support Taiwan independence by not defending Taiwan in any way," she said.

"Strengthen deterrence against authoritarianism" is how newly elected President of Taiwan, William Lai, put it in his remarks.

Although Beijing sees Taiwan as a province that broke away from China and wants to regain authority over it, Taiwan is an independent island that runs its own affairs.

TikTok ban

A clause in the national security package may potentially result in a statewide ban of TikTok.

TikTok's parent firm, located in China, has nine months to find a US-approved buyer and sell its ownership in the popular social media app, failing which it would shut down nationwide.

According to the legislation, the US president may choose to extend the deadline by an extra ninety days, meaning that the ban might go into force as late as almost a year from now.

Senate in the US authorizes possible TikTok ban

With senators claiming that the Chinese government may use security regulations to force ByteDance to give over data about the app's estimated 170 million US users, the TikTok clause garnered bipartisan backing.

TikTok has said on several occasions that it has not given the Chinese government access to its overseas user data and never will.