Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged Congress to support the Biden administration’s full $106 billion supplemental spending request, and cautioned against separating out aid for Israel from continued assistance to Ukraine.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Austin and Blinken specifically cited the tens of billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. defense industrial base as a key component for moving forward on the emergency spending package.
“I think it’s important to understand that the elements of this request work together as a package. As you know, the defense industrial base operates in a complex way. It’s an interdependent unit. Making these investments together allows us to do what’s needed to strengthen the defense industrial base and to seize the benefits and efficiencies that come from making these investments together rather than making them piecemeal,” Blinken told lawmakers.
The White House has noted its $106 billion supplemental spending request, rolled out on October 20, includes $50 billion that would be invested into the defense industrial base (Defense Daily, Oct. 20).
The supplemental request specifically includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine support, $14.3 billion in assistance for Israel, $7.2 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants, $4 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific region, and $3.4 billion to bolster submarine industrial base efforts.
“The Biden administration’s national security supplemental request offers us a useful blueprint. And Vice Chair [Susan] Collins (R-Maine) and I are working right now to craft strong, bipartisan legislation that meets the national security priorities that the president laid out,” Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Appropriations Committee, said on Tuesday.
House Republicans on Monday, however, released their own bill that includes $14.3 billion in emergency aid for Israel, which follows Hamas’ incursion on October 7 and as the country pursues a ground invasion of Gaza, but does not have funds for Ukraine or the other priorities laid out in the Biden administration’s request (Defense Daily, Oct. 30).
The White House has said House Republicans’ Israel aid bill is a “nonstarter,” noting that the costs in the legislation are offset with $14.3 billion in Internal Revenue Service budget cuts.
“Politicizing our national security interests is a nonstarter. Demanding offsets for meeting core national security needs of the United States—like supporting Israel and defending Ukraine from atrocities and Russian imperialism—would be a break with the normal, bipartisan process and could have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Austin said that moving forward on a supplemental spending measure without further Ukraine aid would “guarantee” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will be successful” in his ongoing invasion.
“And while the Ukrainians have done amazing work with our help, in terms of the things that we’ve provided them, if we pull the rug out from under them now, Putin will only get stronger and he will be successful in doing what he wants to do in acquiring his neighbors’ sovereign territory,” Austin said.
Blinken added that the international burden sharing of support for Ukraine “would almost certainly go away if we go away” and it would be seen as a “retreat from our own responsibilities.”
The U.S. has provided about $75 billion in total assistance to Ukraine since February 2022 and allies and partners have donated $90 billion collectively, according to Blinken, adding that includes $43 billion and $33 billion in military support respectively.
“The message it would send, first of all, to each and everyone of these countries is the United States is abandoning ship, so ‘Well, we may as well do [that] too,’” Blinken said of the potential for not funding further Ukraine aid.
Austin said on Tuesday that both Ukraine and Israel “urgently need these resources” laid out in the supplemental spending request, reiterating his view that the package is also “an investment in our defense industrial base.”
“It helps us replenish our stockpiles and gives us additional depth and agility that helps us do what we have done over the years, over the decades, around the world. So I think this is very important that we provide the support and it’s important that we provide the support now in both cases,” Austin said.
The White House’s request specifically covers $30.6 billion for DoD-related Ukraine aid efforts, to include $18 billion for replenishing stockpiles of equipment and increasing production capacity and another $12 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which are funds used to procure equipment from industry to be transferred to Ukraine.
“We would purchase American weapons and munitions from American companies to do that,” Austin told lawmakers. “This money is going right back into the coffers of America and it’s going to create jobs, it’s going to sustain jobs and it’s going to provide opportunities for Americans.”