$33 billion is a lot of money. Joe Biden knows that too. “This fight is not cheap,” the US President said Thursday as he announced his new aid package for Ukraine. But, Biden implied, America has no choice but to pay that price. “Either we help the Ukrainian people to defend their country, or we stand idly by while the Russians continue their crimes.”
Of the $33 billion that Biden now wants to ask Congress to release, $20 billion will go to the Ukrainian military, primarily to buy weapons and ammunition. Kyiv is to receive around $8.5 billion in economic aid and $3 billion in humanitarian aid. Combined with the $14 billion in emergency aid that the US Congress approved soon after the Russian attack began, the amount of US aid to Ukraine is slowly approaching the $50 billion mark.
From the President’s point of view, this gigantic number reflects the importance of the war for the foreign and security policy interests of the United States. On the one hand, Biden is a committed transatlanticist. For him, America’s security is inextricably linked to peace and security in Europe. In addition, Biden sees the conflict between democracies and dictatorships as the struggle that will shape the 21st century. In Biden’s opinion, it is America’s duty to resist the aggressive autocrat Vladimir Putin, who wants to use armed force to change borders in Europe.
So far, criticism has mainly come from the political fringes
The vast majority of Americans agree in principle that the US is supporting the government in Kyiv with arms deliveries and sanctions against Russia. And there has been a broad, bipartisan consensus in Congress that Washington must help Ukraine. However, it is unclear how long this agreement will last – and how expensive the help may be. At least on the fringes of the two political camps, there is little excitement about spending billions of dollars a month on a war tens of thousands of miles from the United States.
You can see that, for example, when you watch Tucker Carlson’s talk show on the conservative Fox News channel. The moderator has toned down his very pro-Russian line at the beginning of the invasion. But he bitterly complained Thursday night that Biden was investing $33 billion in a war that, in Carlson’s opinion, was not in the interests of the United States. Biden is doing much to prolong the war and little to achieve peace.
Think of it what you like – Carlson is influential and his arguments resonate with the Republican electorate. In any case, hardly any of the Republican candidates who are currently fighting in the internal primaries to become their party’s candidate for the congressional elections in November are calling for greater American involvement in Ukraine. On the contrary: In Ohio, JD Vance was even the candidate who openly admits that he doesn’t really care about the fate of Ukraine. America’s government should take care of Americans.
Among other things, Vance initially gained the support of Tucker Carlson through this attitude, and a few days ago Donald Trump personally recommended him for the election. Virtually every conservative Republican spokesman is now campaigning with Vance. From a European point of view, that should be a warning signal: If the Republicans – as is expected – win back the majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate in November, the currently very benevolent mood for Kyiv and NATO in Washington could quickly change.
Especially since in the event of such a defeat, the left wing of the Democrats could also withdraw from Biden. There they are already of the opinion that the President should rather spend the many billions to finance climate protection, to waive student loans for young people or at least to make Covid tests free again – in other words: to do things that could actually help the Democrats politically.
It’s no coincidence that left-liberal Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren and her colleague Bernie Sanders are mainly talking about socio-political issues and higher taxes for the rich these days, not about the situation in Kyiv. Average Americans are grappling with record inflation and falling real incomes. Biden leading the free world’s fight against Putin has not significantly improved his poll numbers or the Democrats’ chances of winning the congressional election.