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Congress has finally delivered much-needed aid for Ukraine and other allies. For months, it almost didn’t seem possible. Election year politics, including cynical opposition from former President Donald Trump and the far-right flank in the U.S. House of Representatives, helped stall previous bipartisan efforts to advance foreign aid and strengthen U.S. border security.
Despite a lot of hard and collaborative work, including the U.S. Senate passing its own $95 billion aid package in February, it looked as if gridlock in the House would derail action and abandon our Ukrainian allies at a disastrous point in their fight against Russian aggression.
Thankfully, if belatedly, lawmakers and the Biden administration have stepped up to prevent that from happening. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson deserves credit, and support from Democrats in the looming challenge to his speakership, for listening to alarming intelligence reports out of Ukraine and standing up to the hardliners in his caucus.
Those hardliners have framed his move to help secure roughly $95 billion in assistance for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian efforts as a “surrender.” If anything, Johnson and the solid majority of Congress who supported this aid surrendered to the reality that a strong America requires maintaining strong alliances.
Compromise is not capitulation. Congressional leaders did the right thing by working through their differences to secure this military and humanitarian support. Failure to do so would have been its own form of surrender to Vladimir Putin and the creeping authoritarianism seen around the globe.
Despite the drama surrounding Johnson’s breakthrough in the House, this progress didn’t happen overnight. President Joe Biden was consistent in his call for more aid. Unified efforts in the Senate from Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, and ongoing collaboration between top appropriators Patty Murray and Susan Collins, surely helped set the stage for this eventual success.
Hopefully lawmakers in both houses and parties now recognize that working together toward imperfect solutions is better than total inaction. And hopefully they realize that the U.S. cannot retreat from a complicated and dangerous world. Failing to support our friends would not only weaken our global standing morally, but strategically.
Collins, who helped shepherd the aid package through the Senate, outlined the need for a strong response to global threats in a speech on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
“In the past few months, I have received briefings from two combatant commanders — General Kurilla of the U.S. Central Command and Admiral Aquilino of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Each of them has told me that this is the most dangerous global environment that they have seen. One said in 40 years, the other said in 50 years,” the Maine Republican said in her speech.
The point, Collins stressed, “is that the threats that the United States faces from an aggressive Iran and its proxies, an imperialistic Russia, and a hegemonic China are interconnected. How we respond to one affects how the other will operate. They require a strong response.”
Congress has now followed through with that strong response, and Biden has signed the aid package into law. The Senate’s 79-18 vote in favor was particularly overwhelming. Independent Maine Sen. Angus King supported the aid package, and had long called for additional support to Ukraine.
“Murderous dictators and terrorist groups around the world have been betting on the dysfunction of the American Congress — that we couldn’t come together to pass a bipartisan agreement,” King said in a statement after the vote. “They’ve been betting that democracy can’t work, that we can’t make tough decisions and tough commitments and live up to them. I want to stand on the right side of history in fighting authoritarianism. I want to stand on the side of democracy. So I believe aiding our allies and partners is critical to securing American interests and stability around the world.”
Johnson has said that “history is going to judge this well” and that “it was the right thing to do.” We agree, and we expect that politicians will find that doing the right thing historically can also turn out to be the right thing politically. It already looks like Johnson could find bipartisan support to fend off a potential motion to vacate his speakership, for example.
The pragmatism on display in passing the foreign aid package should now carry over to other issues, like immigration and border security. Wouldn’t it be great if this campaign season was defined by politicians arguing over who gets more credit for good things happening, rather than pointing fingers about who gets more blame for inaction?
Just as America is stronger when we support our friends, we are also stronger when we work through our differences and find solutions — even imperfect ones.
