US Funding for Ukraine: An Analysis of the American Postion and History

Author: Abhinav S. Nambeesan
Research & Publications Division 

While Ukraine continues to buckle under the strain of the continued Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has found himself dealing with yet another problem that threatens his nation’s survival- a lack of continued funding from the United States. While the US has been a reliable source of supplies for any nation or group opposed to Russia for the last seventy-five years, the will in the US Congress to continue to fund the Ukrainians is running out.

Since February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States has supplied several billions of Dollars in direct fiscal aid and has given weapons including HIMARS, Abrams and Bradley tanks, javelin missiles and other small arms.¹ While countries such as the UK, France and Poland have also extended military support to the Ukrainians, the war effort for Ukraine is very much dependent on a continuous flow of support from the most advanced military in the world, which is something that is not assured. US President Joe Biden has been unequivocally standing by Ukraine in this fight, perceiving this as the perfect way for his country to weaken Russia without sacrificing any American lives or involving the country in a quagmire like Vietnam.

However, it is Congress that has the power of the purse, and Biden needs to get any aid past the House of Representatives and the Senate, which looks increasingly unlikely. Biden’s Democratic Party, the more liberal of the two major parties of the country, has generally been supportive of the war in Ukraine, and since it had controlled both chambers of Congress in 2022 when the war began, the US had stood strong in support. However, its approval of this aid was controversial even at the time.

In 2022, the US Congress, controlled by the Democrats, approved around $113 Billion in aid to Ukraine, which was allocated towards defence needs as well as general fiscal aid for the Ukrainian government². However, this did not come without controversy, and as the war in Ukraine became a hot topic of debate in the Congressional elections in that year, the opposition Republican Party, which is the conservative party, had signalled that it was not as supportive of this as the Democrats. In a year where inflation, especially due to a sharp rise in gasoline prices, and the cost of living crisis had become the biggest issue of the election, the Republicans fractured on the topic of continued funding for Ukraine. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has been quite strong in his support for Ukraine, and Republican Senators also largely supported the aid. In the House of Representatives, a large chunk of Republicans- mostly a part of the far-right Freedom Caucus- quite strongly opposed any aid given to Ukraine.

These Republicans, mostly led by Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), are generally isolationist, and had argued that given the various economic issues the country was facing, the government should focus on resolving their domestic issues instead of prioritising aid for a foreign government. Even so, the Republican leadership, led by Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was largely supportive of the aid, and most Republicans joined the Democrats in approving it.

At that time, Ukraine could rely on the US to be a reliable supplier of aid, but November 2022 changed that. Campaigning on the Democrats’ failure to control inflation, the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in the Congressional elections held that month, and while the Democrats managed to keep control of the Senate, it meant that there would need to be major compromises between the two parties in order to pass further aid to Ukraine. Since the new Congress was only to be sworn in on 3rd January of the next year, the Democrats had two months in their lame-duck period.

In December, the Democrats passed a $1.7 Trillion “omnibus” spending Bill³, which was essentially the federal government budget for the 2023 fiscal year combined with several other provisions. It allocated several billions of Dollars towards Ukraine aid, and this meant that when the Republican-controlled House was sworn in in January, they could not unilaterally stop Ukraine aid. Then, the world bore witness to a humiliating display for the Republicans, when it took fifteen ballots for Representative McCarthy to be elected the Speaker of the House, as the Freedom Caucus demanded concessions in order to get their votes, which included a reduction in defence spending and an end to such “omnibus” Bills which contained many different provisions in the same Bill. This was the first major friction within the US government in regards to aid to Ukraine, and President Biden felt the heat of a hostile House of Representatives as he and Democratic Senators tried to wrangle with the new House leadership for further aid.

However, by September of 2023, Kevin McCarthy had found himself walking an extremely thin tightrope, as he had angered the far right of his party by not committing strongly to his concessions, especially regarding the imposition of austerity measures to try and balance the budget, as the Freedom Caucus believed the spiralling budget deficits were an existential threat to the US. In September, the federal government had been under threat of shutting down, as the House was unable to pass a budget to fund government functions, and with the threat of a government shutdown which would be damaging to the economy, McCarthy turned to support from House Democrats, who joined moderate Republicans to pass a continuing resolution that would fund the government till a formal budget could be passed. This resulted in the Freedom Caucus revolting, and voting to oust McCarthy from the Speakership⁴.

For the next three weeks, the Congress was paralyzed as House Republicans failed to elect a new Speaker, meaning that no Bills- including Ukraine aid- could be passed, until Representative Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was elected as the new Speaker on 25th October. Johnson was much more hostile towards Biden and the prospect of giving even more aid to Ukraine without major concessions from the federal government, including a crackdown on immigration from the Mexican border, which Biden was unwilling to make.

Meanwhile, the flaring up of the Israel-Hamas crisis after the attacks on 7th October shifted the attention of the world and the US government towards the Middle East, which was another reason why staunch conservative and Israel ally Mike Johnson was chosen as the new Speaker. The lack of any victories in Ukraine, the distraction of another crisis, and the control of the House by isolationist Republicans made Zelenskyy quite frustrated, and in December, he made a visit to the US Congress to try and appeal for more aid, but was unable to persuade House Republicans to grant it. In the present day, as Ukraine has begun to struggle against a more aggressive Russian advance, the US has not sent any more aid.

What are the reasons why the US is not sending more aid?

The Republican Party has been, since the 2016 Presidential Election, the “party of Donald Trump,” even after his loss in 2020 to Joe Biden. While Trump had been very aggressive against China and Iran, his administration had been more conciliatory towards the Russians, even suggesting in 2017 that Russia should be let back into the G7⁵. When the war in Ukraine started, Trump, like other Republicans, was in favour of aid to Ukraine, but he had quickly taken a turn towards isolationism, and regularly criticised Congress for providing aid to Ukraine while he said there were more pressing issues domestically. Democrats said that this was indicative of a pro-Russia bias for Trump, who had faced a very long investigation during his Presidency of possible Russian intervention in the 2016 election to get him elected, and he also has many ties to Russia through his real estate company. Trump also has no affection for the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. In 2019, Trump had had a call with Zelenskyy in which he had pressured Ukrainian authorities to investigate his then-rival Joe Biden, threatening to withhold military aid already passed by Congress until Zelenskyy went through with the investigation. It was this call- which was seen as soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election- which had led to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeaching Trump in December 2019⁶, though the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him in the following trial and did not remove him from office. Trump and his Republican supporters have not had a great liking to Zelenskyy since that affair, and since Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for the Presidential Election of 2024, Democrats fear that he would sabotage the Ukrainian war effort not just because of his isolationist stance but also because of his personal animosity towards Zelenskyy.

Trump and other Republicans have argued that as the national debt of the country increases even more and the cost of living remains a big problem, the US should use the billions of Dollars it sent the Ukrainians to tackle either of these issues. Trump has also criticised European states in the NATO military alliance, for relying on American military protection and not meeting their NATO target of spending 2% of the GDP on defence, and has said that Ukraine’s neighbours in Europe like Germany, Poland, Italy and France should step up more. The Ukrainians are quite fearful of a Trump victory in November 2024, if they do manage to even last that long without further US aid.

Further, the issue of immigration has become a very hot-button issue in US politics, which has led to Speaker Johnson and other Republicans to state that no Ukraine aid Bill should be passed by Congress before they can secure their border with Mexico. There is no question that there has been a large wave of migration from Mexico and Central America in the past decade, and the Republicans have taken the anti-immigration stance since then. Trump had run for election in 2016 with a very striking promise of erecting a wall on the Mexican border to stop immigration, and while that promise was not fulfilled, he did manage to take the Republican Party into a strongly anti-immigration position.

Republicans have argued that the wave of immigrants, most of whom are seeking asylum in the United States, has significantly strained the resources of border states like Texas, and that the welfare system of the country cannot sustain itself without significantly decreasing immigration. Also, a conspiracy theory that illegal immigrants are voting in elections has become prominent among the far-right members of the party, though moderate Republicans largely stick to economic arguments. In January 2024, Ukraine had once again said that it was not going to be able to sustain itself without further aid, and the US Senate finally passed a Bill to appropriate aid to Ukraine⁷, packed with aid to Israel, Taiwan and other allies in February. However, Speaker Johnson has opposed the Bill, as Republicans are pushing for a strong Bill to tackle the immigration issue, and he has stated that he would not be tabling the aid package for a vote until Senate Democrats agree to pass a strong immigration Bill. The Senate Bill had actually contained provisions to strengthen provision on the Mexican border, but Johnson had rejected it as too weak to tackle the developing situation, so it had been stripped out of the Bill. While House Democrats are trying to bring the Bill to a vote without the Speaker’s permission using a special rule, it does not seem like the aid to Ukraine is going to go anywhere without the Democrats conceding on the immigration issue, which does not seem like it is going to happen.

What lies in the future?

While there is a chance that Democrats ally with moderate Republicans to pass the aid Bill despite Speaker Johnson’s opposition, it seems quite far-fetched, especially because a growing portion of the Democratic Party has begun to oppose aid to Israel, which is packed in the Bill as well. The Republicans do not seem like they will drop the immigration issue, because of the combined Presidential and Congressional elections in November 2024, in which the Republicans have sought to make immigration a major topic of debate. It is an issue in which the Republicans have always done better on, especially among the white working class demographic, and Johnson will be seeking to avoid losing the House of Representatives in November. Currently, polls show that the Democrats are likely to take control of the House and the Republicans are likely to take control of the Senate, flipping control of both chambers, so the Republicans will want to appeal to their base in standing up against Biden on the immigration issue and also on the issue of balancing the budgets. Ukraine, which was still struggling against the Russian onslaught, has been seeking to cosy up to its European supporters, in order to keep the aid flowing and the war effort afloat. The United States, which continues to deal with major economic issues, will have to face the question of a possible Russian victory, but for now, the Ukraine war has mostly slipped out of the mainstream, and more pressing domestic economic and social issues have taken centre stage.

Bibliography

1. “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine”- Congressional Research Service, 15th February, 2024

2. “Congress Approved $113 Billion of Aid to Ukraine in 2022”- Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, 5th January, 2023

3. “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023: Summary of Appropriations Provisions by Subcommittee”- House Committee on Appropriations

4. “Kevin McCarthy ousted as House Speaker in historic vote”- Reuters, 4th October, 2023

5. “Trump says Russia should be at G7 meeting, Moscow not so sure”- Reuters, 8th June, 2018

6. “Trump Impeached for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress”- New York Times, 18th December, 2019

7. “US Senate passes $95 bn aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan”- The Economic Times, 14th February, 2024