Biden may request $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine and $10 billion to Israel

United States President Joe Biden plans to ask Congress to allocate $60 billion and $10 billion in military aid to Ukraine and Israel, respectively. This was reported by Reuters, citing sources in the White House. According to the publication, this money is part of a large combined package worth $100 billion, which also includes funds for military support for Taiwan and strengthening the border with Mexico. It is expected that Biden will announce this during his address to US citizens on October 19 (at 3.00 Moscow time on October 20).

If supported by the House of Representatives and then the Senate, Kyiv, Tel Aviv and Taipei will receive funding for the entire fiscal year 2025. But some congressmen said they had not yet received information about a possible request from the White House. Thus, Jim Risch, chairman of the Republican group on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that he is not aware of the administration’s intention to agree on a $100 billion package with Congress. He is only aware of the $10 billion aid package for Israel.

The aid situation is complicated by the fact that the House of Representatives still cannot elect a speaker. Republican Jim Jordan has twice been unable to get enough votes from fellow party members and on October 19 decided to suspend the fight for speakership for “several months.” He plans to spend this time on negotiations with fellow party members in order to gain the required number of votes. Jordan also said he intends to support granting additional powers to interim Speaker Patrick McHenry.

Some Democrats are also discussing the possibility of giving Speaker pro tempore McHenry more powers to reinvigorate the House.

By October 19, the number of people speaking against Jordan had increased: in the first round of voting, 20 Republicans spoke against Jordan’s candidacy, in the second there were already 22. In January 2023, ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to hold 15 rounds of voting before being elected. At the same time, if representatives of the small right wing of the Republican Party voted against McCarthy, moderate Republicans do not want to support Jordan.

The US Constitution guarantees the House of Representatives the so-called power of the purse. In other words, all financial obligations, including international ones, must be approved by the chamber. The President cannot authorize the distribution of funds unilaterally, either through executive orders (a mechanism that allows Congress to bypass Congress in some cases, such as when negotiating international treaties), or by memorandum.

Since February 2022, the United States has allocated $43 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. Biden announced his intention to request an additional $24 billion from Congress at the end of August. However, Republicans in the House of Representatives warned that approval of new tranches is possible only after providing data on the structure of expenditures of the funds transferred to Ukraine. On September 30, Congress approved short-term funding for the federal government that did not include funds for Kyiv. The Pentagon later announced that the department had just over $5 billion in material resources left for military assistance to Ukraine, which, according to WSJ estimates, would be enough for six months.

By default, the president has either the powers that are specified in the constitution or that were given to him by Congress, explains American lawyer Igor Slabykh. If you act according to the constitution, then you need a budget for financing. If you go along the second path, then there is a “countless mountain of laws” that give a huge amount of power to the executive branch in different contexts, the lawyer notes. “However, it is impossible to guess what Biden will do,” the lawyer concluded.

Biden’s decision to request such a large amount from Congress during a period when the House of Representatives is not functioning seems to be a common PR move aimed at an external audience, says Viktor Mizin, a researcher at IMEMO RAS. “Biden wants to show both the Arab world and Russia and China that the weight of the United States in the world cannot be written off. Especially for him [Байдена] this is important at a time when Washington can do nothing to resolve the situation in the Middle East,” the expert explained. He also added that with such a huge money request, Biden will create domestic political problems for himself that could harm his chances of re-election.