New york — The announcement made by the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, sounds dramatic: American assistance to Ukraine to defend itself from Russian aggression “has stopped” because the government has exhausted the funds approved by Congress. The deadline would be January 19th and so the countdown has begun. It’s a dramatic development, but it must be placed in context, that is, the ongoing negotiations between the White House and the Republican majority in the House to unlock the approximately $110 billion in funding requested by President Biden to help Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and strengthen security on the southern border with Mexico.
Already in recent days Kirby had announced a military aid package described as the last one, because the appropriate money had run out so far. This does not mean that Kiev will immediately run out of ammunition, because supplies are made months in advance, and it is not excluded that other funds will not be found in the folds of the Pentagon budget to continue assistance to Ukraine. However, this does not take away from the fact that the situation is dramatic, and the announcement made by Kirby is aimed precisely at increasing the pressure on Congress to finally reach a compromise that will allow the release of all the necessary funding.
Negotiations have been ongoing for weeks. In the Senate there is a solid bipartisan majority ready to approve the appropriations, starting with the Republican leader McConnell. Even in the House the majority is in favour, but the patrol of the most extremist Trumpist deputies holds Speaker Johnson hostage, who in the meantime has already reached an agreement in principle with the Democrats on the maximum spending limits in the next budget law, but precisely to this was targeted by the more conservative members of his party, who through the objection of a single MP have the ability to vote his no confidence on the floor.
The exchange requested of Biden is the approval of a series of measures for the security of the southern border, with the aim of stopping the record influx of illegal immigrants. The president agrees on some initiatives, such as the increase in border agents and also the tightening of asylum rules, also because signing the agreement would weaken a central argument of Donald Trump’s election campaign. Precisely for this reason, however, Trumpist parliamentarians are pushing for concessions considered unacceptable by Democrats. Kirby’s announcement serves to raise the pressure, but if an agreement were reached, the emergency could be resolved within hours.