House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday unveiled a trio of supplemental spending bills covering aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, setting a path to potentially move forward on billions of dollars in foreign assistance that has remained stalled in Congress for months.
President Biden said he “strongly support[s]” the package of bills, which largely matches funding levels in the $95 billion foreign aid supplemental the Senate approved in February, urging passage of the measures this week.
“I strongly support this package to get critical support to Israel and Ukraine, provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Israel is facing unprecedented attacks from Iran, and Ukraine is facing continued bombardment from Russia that has intensified dramatically in the last month,” Biden said in a statement. “The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.”
The three bills rolled out on Wednesday specifically include $60.8 billion to support Ukraine, $26.4 billion for assistance to Israel and $8.1 billion related to Indo-Pacific security efforts, such as aid for Taiwan.
The White House said on Monday afternoon it would oppose Congress considering a standalone bill to provide aid for Israel, in the wake of Iran’s drone and missile attack last Saturday urging Congress to support the larger pending supplemental package with assistance for Ukraine and Taiwan (Defense Daily, April 15).
Johnson on Monday evening announced his plan to split the larger supplemental into distinct bills to meet calls from fellow Republicans for considering aid votes separately. The move has received pushback from some hardline conservative GOP members opposed to further Ukraine aid, who are now also considering a push to oust Johnson as speaker.
“I personally think the speaker’s doing the right thing to separate them. They’re three separate issues and whether we roll them back together at the end of it or not is a leadership decision. But there are people in my party that will vote to support Israel that will not vote to support Ukraine. I think they’ve made that very clear publicly. And I think there are people on the Democratic side that will vote to support Ukraine that will not vote to support Israel. So I think that every member should have the ability to vote their convictions on each of those,” Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said during a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearing on Tuesday.
The House is likely to consider the package of foreign aid bills on Saturday, before sending the supplemental spending back measures back to the Senate for the upper chamber’s consideration.
Along with Biden’s call for passage, the package of bills is picking up some bipartisan support, to include the House’s top Democrat appropriator urging “swift passage” this week.
“After House Republicans dragged their feet for months, we finally have a path forward to provide support for our allies and desperately needed humanitarian aid,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “The three funding bills expected to be considered this week mirror the Senate-passed package and include support for Ukraine against Russian aggression; Israel in its war against Iran and its proxies, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; and our Indo-Pacific partners against an adversarial China. It provides long overdue humanitarian aid for the millions of civilians who have been caught in the crossfire across these theaters, including in Gaza where innocent Palestinians are facing unthinkable circumstances.”
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on HASC, however, said on Tuesday he was “deeply concerned” about Johnson’s “convoluted plan” for considering foreign aid, adding that “weapons would be flowing to Ukraine literally within days” if the House were to consider the Senate-passed supplemental.
“Best case scenario, if they pull this together, maybe two months from now we’re able to figure this out once it goes back to the Senate with all of these additional provisions to it that the Senate has to sort its way through. That is basically boiling Ukraine to death slowly,” Smith said during a Tuesday hearing. “There is simply no time to delay further by, once again, torturing ourselves to try to figure out what it is that the House Republican majority might want to do on Ukraine.”
Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of U.S. European Command/NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told lawmakers last week Ukraine is set to run out of artillery rounds and air defense interceptors “in fairly short order,” and that he believes Kyiv “will not be able to prevail” against Russia without continued U.S. support (Defense Daily, April 10).
The House’s newly proposed $60.8 billion Ukraine aid bill specifically includes $23.2 billion to replenish stockpiles of U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine, $13.8 billion in additional Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds to purchase U.S.-made weapons for Kyiv and $11.3 billion to continue DoD efforts to support Ukraine with military training and intelligence sharing.
The separate $26.4 billion Israel aid bill introduced on Wednesday includes $4 billion for procurement of Iron Dome air defense system and David’s Sling short-range ballistic missile defense capabilities, $1.2 billion for Israel’s Iron Beam laser-based defense system, and $3.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing funds to purchase U.S.-made defense equipment, matching spending levels in the Senate’s larger $95.3 billion supplemental package passed in February (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).
The bill also includes $4.4 billion to replenish stockpiles of equipment provided to Israel and $2.4 billion for “current U.S. military operations in the region in response to recent attacks.”
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told lawmakers this week the service has used nearly $1 billion in critical munitions in Middle East operations in the past year and passing the pending supplemental spending bill is key to replenishing them (Defense Daily, April 17).
The House’s separate $8.1 billion measure for Indo-Pacific security specifically covers $3.3 billion for submarine industrial base investments, $2 billion in FMF funds for Indo-Pacific partners, including Taiwan, $1.9 billion to replenish defense equipment provided to Taiwan and other regional partners and $542 million “to strengthen U.S. military capabilities in the region.”