By Ahmad Dagher
WASHINGTON––This Saturday, April 20, the U.S. House of Representatives approved $95 billion in aid for security assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
All that is left is for Senate approval to ensure that the legislative package is passed.
The decision this Saturday was a culmination of months of bitter legislative battles this year. Specifically, the House Republicans were split on the issue––it was a fight between the traditionalists supporting foreign intervention against the expansion of Russia and China, and the relatively newer branch of conservatives who preferred to focus on domestic issues above all else.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson ultimately chose to speak in staunch support of the foreign aid bills, a move that garnered much criticism. “I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important…I believe Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil,” said Johnson this week.
But many of the hardline conservatives thought otherwise. Some argued that the bills would only increase federal debt. Others simply didn’t trust Ukrainian President Zelensky, partially due to his refusal to grant Former President Trump’s request to look into President Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.
But most of all, the factor driving opposition to the passage of the foreign aid bills was concern for the southern border migrant crisis. Many isolationist Representatives argued that domestic issues ought to come before foreign ones.
“How much sense does it make to secure other countries and not secure America,” Representative Ralph Norman argued.
Speaker Johnson initially took these concerns into account, demanding that the new foreign aid was delivered hand-in-hand with bolstered security at the border. But as the legislative stalemate continued, he eventually abandoned his prior position, opting instead to separate the two and to focus more on assistance to overseas allies.
As that move frustrated many of the Republican Representatives, Johnson made an effort to appease the right flank. But even as he proposed several Republican-oriented changes to the bills, Johnson was unable to convince the critics: the Democrats carried the vote, as over half of the Republican Party voted against the bill for Ukraine aid.
And even worse for the conservative hardliners, the 4 foreign aid bills were packaged together and sent for approval in the Senate.
All that is left is to wait for the Senate’s decision next week.
