"Chaos on Capitols"

Help Ukraine once again was blocked in Congress. Trump forced the Republicans to abandon their ideas

The “chaos on the Capitols” of the local media called the series of events in the past Tuesday and Wednesday, when the Republican senators, who for several months coordinated the legislative package of $ 118 billion, connecting the allocation of funds to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and 10 billion for humanitarian projects (including gas sector) with toughening border policies, in front of the procedure. Voting left the transaction.

Thus, they blocked both the help of Kyiv and the “most stringent in recent decades” measures to combat illegal immigration, which the Biden administration agreed to continue to help Kyiv and other allies. In words welcoming help from Kyiv in new supplies of shells, missiles and other weapons, in reality republican lawmakers put the political interests of the party in the upcoming November elections above both the requests of Ukraine and the needs of the strategic ally of America - Israel, as well as Taiwan. Once again, we witnessed the fact that the most important international problems American politicians are dependent on their internal agenda.

As a result, the deal in the Senate, about which the world media wrote so much, on Wednesday was torn due to the fault of the initiators of the transaction - Republicans. And in the lower ward, where they have the majority of the votes, on Tuesday evening, two votes were lost at once: about impeachment to the Minister of Internal Security Alejandro major (there was not enough one voice) and about the allocation of military assistance to Israel of $ 17, 6 billion (separately from assistance to Ukraine and others).

Not all Republican lawmakers were able to come (for health reasons and other personal reasons). And congressmen-democrats voted amicably against impeachment and against the separate allocation of money to Israel. The leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives of Hakim Jeffris said that the “only way forward” is an integrated approach that includes financing the US allies around the world, as well as humanitarian support to civilians who suffered in conflicts in the gas sector and Ukraine.

The White House commented on the current situation as follows: President Biden believes that a new border policy is needed, but will also support the direction of assistance only to Ukraine and Israel, as he did from the very beginning.

As the largest publications of America write,

Republicans showed themselves an effective party when it is necessary to block the initiatives of their political opponents, but were not able to independently promote their own program.

However, for the impeachment of the Minister of Internal Affairs, the House of Representatives is going to vote again. But this is a classic example of Washington’s “political football” (as the media call the meaningless political “defense” of the two parties), because the impeachment of Mallorcas will probably be rejected by the upper house.

For 4 months, Congress has been “marinating” the allocation of money and, accordingly, weapons to Ukraine. The State Department and the Pentagon sent money from their funds, "only this is not enough."

On the eve of the vote, President Baiden called on the Congress “show that he has a ridge” and not succumb to Donald Trump’s pressure, and American ambassadors from the 9th countries of the Asian region sent a letter to lawmakers (which is extremely atypical for the local diplomats) with an appeal to allocate money to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Among the 9 chapters of diplomatic missions that signed the appeal are ambassadors: in China - Nicholas Burns, in Japan - Ram Emanuel (formerly the closest ally of Obama), in Australia - Caroline Kennedy (daughter of President John Kennedy). “We consider it important to convey to you how deep influence this budget decision will have on our alliances and partnership in the Indo-Pacific region,” writes diplomats to legislators.

Supporters of the bill in the Congress warn that failure to fulfill the plan of assistance to Ukraine “can give courage to China” in the region. The ambassadors said that countries with expansionist ideas will take note of the result when the lawmakers will conduct what the letter describes as “one of the most important votes for the generation”. “Not only our allies and partners will appreciate this moment, but also our opponents,” the letter says. "Trust in our commitment to collective security and deterrence hangs in the balance."

Despite the call of Biden and the ambassadors, the vote in the Senate was blocked, and the speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson was not going to put a package for voting at all, calling Biden's concessions to tighten the struggle against illegal immigrants “clearly insufficient”.

The speaker is not entirely sincere, journalists and experts suggest. The point is not in Biden's reforms, but that his most likely rival in the election, Donald Trump, called on the republican lawmakers of both chambers not to accept new legislation on the border until November 5. The former president and favorite of the race (if the courts do not remove it) turned out to be the very puppeteer who determined the turn of the legislators from the compromise to the impasse.

Ukraine has become a hostage to the political struggle for a chair in the White House. Despite all the democratic procedures and the system of “checks and counterweights”, which are so proud of the local politicians.

As it is now clear, the White House and the Democratic Party on the eve of the New Year had more chances to accept a bag of assistance than now. Then it seemed that the votes of the "super -conservative" Republicans would not be enough to disrupt the help of Kyiv. But then Trump intervened.

According to the New York Times Observer, Karl Hals, the former president "managed to establish control over his own party." Trump immediately rejected the pact about the border and assistance of Ukraine. And already now, being five minutes from receiving the nomination of the official presidential candidate from the Republican Party, he dictates to lawmakers-one-party members what to do.

It must be remembered that on November 5, America elects not only the president, but also a third of the Senate (33 seats) and the composition of the House of Representatives (435 seats). Legislators supporting the package risk not only to lose the support of the 45th president, but also to get Trump as a political enemy, because he is avenging and ready to support competitors of those legislators who dare to vote for the package. According to Hals, Trump considers riots on the border - and the motivation that they give to conservative voters - one of their largest political advantages. As Joe Biden said on Tuesday, the former president "feverishly incites the opposition" to the new legislation.

When the Republicans demanded to link the help of Ukraine with the tightening of border control and immigration circulars, the New York Times writes, they thought they had placed the “cunning trap” of the democrats. The idea was that the democrats would never accept the strict rules for immigrants (this is their electoral base), allowing the Republicans to "block money for Kyiv and at the same time criticize the democrats for refusing to stop the crowds of migrants on the border." Before the November elections, this was to be a win -win option.

But the Democrats unexpectedly proposed significant (almost “unheard of”, according to supporters of the presidential administration), the assignment in immigration policy. Now it is the Republicans - including the leader of the Senate minority, Mitch MacConnell, the chief republican supporter of assistance to Ukraine and Senator James Lancer from Oklahoma, who spent months to conclude an agreement on the border - abandoned the compromise.

“A year ago, they said: we need changes in the law,” said Senator Lancer, disappointed with his Republican colleagues. - And now the conversation is: we joked, we do not need changes in the law. We just need the president to use the laws that he already has. We used to be not like that. " This change struck the democrats. “Just stunned,” wrote Senator Brian Shatz, a democrat from Hawaii on social networks. “I have never seen anything like it.” They literally demanded a specific policy, received it, and then they killed it. ”

But for Trump, it is important not only to preserve chaos at the border until the November elections. Ukraine is also on his agenda. As observers note Steve Gromy and Mary Jane Jelonik,

Trump forced many Republicans to doubt the support of Ukraine, assuming that he could agree on the termination of hostilities, and washed into praise to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including after February 2022.

As the leader of the democratic majority of Chuck Schumer, opening the meeting of the chamber on Wednesday, “history will throw a shameful shadow” to those who try to block assistance to Ukraine.

While America is too, the EU decides to help Kyiv. But without American weapons, Ukraine will be extremely difficult - everyone understands this. And on the Capitol - as if there were no 4 months of discussion - the question of a separate bill for the help of Ukraine, Israel and further on the list is raised again. Democrats believe that the adoption of assistance will still take place. So thinks the presidential assistant in the national security of Jake Sullivan. However, he is supposed to be an optimist by his post. And on the Capitol Hill, the circle closed and a new round begins.