Photo: Chip Somodevilla Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Entangled in partisan disputes, Congress has been struggling for months to adopt funds for kyiv.
France Media Agency in Washington
Published at 12:59 p.m.
- United States
The American House of Representatives will vote on Saturday on texts releasing funds for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, the Republican head of the institution said on Wednesday, after repeated pressure from President Joe Biden.
“We expect the final vote on these bills to take place on Saturday evening,” wrote Mike Johnson in a letter to elected officials in Congress, seen by Agence France-Presse.
The elected officials will vote on four texts.
The first provides nearly $61 billion to help Ukraine, mainly military aid.
Separate bills also provide more than $26 billion to support Israel and several billion dollars for Taiwan.
Tangled in partisan disputes, Congress has been divided for months over the adoption of funds for kyiv, at war with Russia since February 2022.
Biden Tribune
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly urged elected officials to adopt a military and humanitarian assistance package without delay. Wednesday morning, he reiterated his call in a column in the columns of the Wall Street Journal.
The US House of Representatives “must urgently pass” bills on new aid to Ukraine and Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza, the Democratic leader called.
“While both countries are fully capable of defending their own sovereignty, they depend on American aid, including arms, to do so. And we are at a pivotal moment,” he wrote in the daily.
The White House provided cautious support for these new projects on Tuesday. Before President Joe Biden gave his frank support to the texts.
“Both Ukraine and Israel are under attack by impudent enemies who seek their annihilation,” he said in his column.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to subjugate the Ukrainian people and absorb their nation into a new Russian empire,” he added, also believing that “the Iranian government wants to destroy Israel, and thus wipe it off the map forever.” the only Jewish state in the world.”
“America must never accept any of these results,” said Joe Biden.
Motion of censure
Ukraine is desperately short of ammunition in its war with Russia, and American funds are exhausted.
Israel, for its part, faced, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, a direct and unprecedented attack from Iran, in the context of high regional tensions.< /p>
A $60 billion package of military and economic assistance for Ukraine was passed in the Senate in February. But Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to consider the text, due, among other things, to a dispute over the issue of immigration.
If it is adopted by the Republican-majority House, the batch of texts unveiled on Wednesday will then be studied by the Democratic-majority Senate, before arriving on Joe Biden's desk for promulgation.
Mike Johnson's announcement was rejected by some of his Republican colleagues, reviving the possibility of a censure motion and a new crisis in the House. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was impeached last year after a rebellion by the Trumpist wing of his party.
Mike Johnson has plunged the Republican Party “into chaos by serving the Democrats and adopting Biden's agenda”, criticized elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene on X.
“Now he’s going to finance wars abroad,” she added. He “must announce a date for his resignation and allow Republicans to elect a new one to put America first and pass a Republican agenda.”
The President of the House ruled out any voluntary departure.
“I will not resign,” Mike Johnson told the press, calling the threat of filing a motion of censure “absurd”.