United States: The US Senate is scheduled for a vote on Thursday concerning the US$95.34 billion bill, which includes aid to Ukraine as well as Israel and Indo- Pacific after Republicans vetoed compromise legislation that also included reform of long-sought immigration policy.
Challenges in Immigration Reform
This is even though Chuck Schumer, Senate Democratic Majority Leader, resorted to sending lawmakers home until midnight of Thursday when they were supposed to discuss a larger part while reconsidering its revised version, which drops all immigration provisions but retains foreign aid.
“We will be coming back tomorrow at noon and, hopefully, that will give the Republicans the time they need,” Schumer said on Wednesday. “We will have this vote.”
Foreign Aid Components
Reuters reported that in order to help and support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government, supporters of Ukraine have been struggling for about a year to find a way to help. The Security aid bill included help for every country in need. This included an aid of $61 bn when Russia was invading Ukraine, US$14 billion for Israel’s war against Hamas, and US$4.83 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.
From the very beginning of the invasion in February 2022, lawmakers approved more than US$110 billion to help Ukraine; as Republicans took over the House of Representatives in Jan 2023, Congress has not passed any major aid for Kyiv.
It’s unclear whether the new bill would win the support of House Republicans.
Urgency Stressed by Schumer
“If we fail at this moment, if we abandon our friends in Ukraine to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, history will cast a shameful and permanent shadow on Senators who block funding,” Schumer told the Senate on Wednesday.
“It is a matter of the highest national urgency that we get this right,” he said.
Those in favor of the Ukraine aid maintain that it is a critical requirement of Washington and its allies to send a shared notification not simply to Russia but universally, and this notification evidently portrays US partners when the Senate votes take place on Wednesday.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk tweeted that Republican senators should be ashamed that they opposed the Ukraine aid package, claiming that their late President Ronald Reagan would be ‘turning in his grave.’
The Kremlin reported that on Thursday, telephone communication between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place, and both leaders rejected what they described as US interference in the affairs of other countries.
Uncertain Path in the House
Even though the stand-alone security bill passes through the Senate, it will still have to be approved by the House, whose dozens of Republicans, particularly those primarily affiliated with former president Trump, are against Ukraine’s aid. The speaker, Mike Johnson, is also among them.
The frontrunner in the Republican presidential nomination candidate, Trump, demands de-escalation in Ukraine and claims that he would have the conflict on hold after assuming office for a period of 24 hours. He also stated he would request that Europe pay back the United States for funds sent to Ukraine.
Trump’s Position and Future Implications
Trump also insisted his fellow Republicans reject any compromise on immigration, a powerful enemy underlining fascism that is call for tight border control being a key campaign against Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
Murphy, one of the three negotiators on this border deal and a Democratic US Senator, told Reuters that the biggest potential threat towards passing the Ukraine bill lies with Trump’s opposition.
“Once he got loud on the immigration bill, the thing fell apart … if he turns his flamethrower on Ukraine, I wonder how it survives,” Murphy said in an interview on Wednesday.