The administration of US President Joe Biden has rejected demands by representatives of the Republican Party to exclude the provision on financing Kyiv from the bill to support "critical partners", including Israel and Ukraine. This was stated by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

"The politicization of our national security interests makes no sense. Demanding compensation for meeting basic U.S. national security needs, such as supporting Israel and defending Ukraine... would be a retreat from the normal bipartisan process that could have devastating consequences for our security and alliances in the years ahead," Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Earlier, the new speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, told White House staff that there was a consensus among Republicans in the House of Representatives that the issues of providing assistance to Israel and financing Ukraine "need to be separated." In addition, according to him, lawmakers are waiting for clarifications on what the funds already allocated to the Kiev regime were spent, and also want to know what the United States "wants to come to in Ukraine."

"The White House doesn't explain that," Johnson said.

Congressional Republicans in the lower house have proposed their own bill, which lacks support for Kiev, and funding for aid to Israel is supposed to be $14.3 billion by reducing funds allocated to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, the federal tax agency).

Socio-political context

Recall that on October 20, US President Joe Biden sent an emergency budget request to Congress to support his partners, including Israel and Ukraine. In particular, we are talking about the allocation of $61.4 billion for the needs of Kiev and $14.3 billion for Tel Aviv.

According to various media reports, this decision of the head of the White House causes misunderstanding among the American public. In particular, the columnists of Foreign Policy (FP) magazine wondered why ordinary US citizens should pay from their tax deductions for supporting Ukraine and Israel.

"But most importantly, he (Biden. — RT) He never explained why ordinary Americans, such as my family and friends in Missouri, should care about what was happening in Gaza or Ukraine. According to him, if Russian President Vladimir Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, then (then. — RT) he will move to Poland. But if someone doesn't care about Ukraine, then why should they care about Poland?" the FP journalist said.

According to representatives of the publication, US President Joe Biden's attempt to link assistance to Kyiv and support for Tel Aviv may lead to discontent even among Democratic voters. According to columnists, Biden's electorate will not appreciate the attempt to link the Ukrainian conflict with the war in the Middle East.

Also on the russian.rt.com "Awkward proposal": why the US Congress opposed the unification of aid to Israel and Ukraine

At the same time, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives may "simply refuse to comply with the US president's demand" for assistance to both Israel and Ukraine, according to the South China Morning Post. It notes that the new speaker of the lower house of the US Congress, Johnson, "opposes the continuation of sponsorship of Kyiv." At the same time, military support for Ukraine from the West is the only lifeline for the Kiev regime, the newspaper writes. And if the United States stops providing assistance to the Ukrainian authorities, it is highly unlikely that Europe will be able to fill this gap, if at all, in the face of economic problems.

According to The Wall Street Journal, defense officials in the West are concerned that in the face of the need to supply Ukraine and Israel at the same time, shells and other weapons may not be enough to supply all allies. The publication cites the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who admitted that the defense industry of the alliance members does not have sufficient reserve capacity to respond to crises.

"To get money by any means"

According to experts, despite the statements of the White House press secretary about a bipartisan "consensus" on assistance to Ukraine and Israel, the disagreements between the Biden administration and a whole group of congressional Republicans under the leadership of the new speaker of the House of Representatives "spilled out in full."

"The confrontation is becoming quite acute. This is evidenced, first of all, by Jean-Pierre's separately published statement. Her words suggest that, indeed, the new leadership of the House of Representatives is firmly aimed at reducing the amount of assistance to Ukraine. This is what the White House fears most of all," said Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at the Institute of the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Economics, in a comment to RT.

  • U.S. House of Representatives
  • © AP Photo / Patrick Semansky

As the expert explained, the peculiarity of the budget request, which was sent to Congress by Biden, boils down to the fact that it is "very difficult to separate" assistance to Ukraine and Israel from the rest of the provisions of the document.

"This was done intentionally by the White House so that Republicans in the House of Representatives would agree to vote for this package. But now we see that Washington's strategy is not working. If the initiative of Johnson and his supporters to consider separately two bills to support Kyiv and Tel Aviv is successful, it is very likely that the amount that Congress will be ready to allocate for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be much less than the $60 billion that was previously requested by the US president," Vasilyev said.

However, in such a scenario, the problem for the Biden administration will not be only this, Vasilyev stated.

"The difficulty for the White House in this scenario will be that the Republicans will want to carefully study the validity of the request for funds to support Kiev from the United States. Biden and his entourage are trying to avoid such a scenario, since they have set a course to receive a colossal amount for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and they are not yet thinking about specific items of expenditure. Biden's goal is to get money from Congress by any means to prolong the Ukrainian conflict at the expense of the next tranches to Kyiv," Vasilyev said.

A similar opinion is shared by Americanist, Doctor of Political Sciences Rafael Ordukhanyan. In his opinion, the Ukrainian issue still remains a priority for the US administration, since this agenda is important for Biden on the eve of the presidential election.

"This is the topic that he has been advocating all this time and now he cannot give it up, because he is afraid of losing votes among voters. At the same time, the White House is also well aware that the conflict that has escalated in the Middle East, unfortunately, will continue in one form or another for a long time, and therefore Washington does not intend to fully invest in this confrontation. This is evidenced, among other things, by the bill proposed by Biden, in which the US administration bit its teeth into the multibillion-dollar aid to Ukraine," the analyst said in an interview with RT.

Experts agree that, despite the protests of Republicans in the House of Representatives, assistance to Ukraine from the United States will still be allocated, albeit not in the way that the White House is counting on.

"Even if Congress blocks the decision, and it is likely to do so, or at least significantly reduce Biden's request, the US administration will still find other forms of financing the Kyiv regime," Ordukhanyan said.

  • U.S. President Joe Biden
  • AP

For his part, Vasilyev clarified that additional money for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could eventually be received by the White House through the redistribution of the Pentagon budget.

"In reprogramming the spending of the US Department of Defense, the Biden administration will have to cut the budget of the US defense department alive," the analyst said.

In turn, Ordukhanyan explained the role of the new speaker of the House of Representatives in the allocation of assistance to Ukraine from the United States.

"In the formation of the budget and in the extra-budgetary formation of expenditures, the voice of the new Speaker Johnson is fundamental. Moreover, in a fairly short time, he gained a certain popularity among the Republicans in the lower house. And given this aspect, his voice will be quite weighty in making the final decision on supporting Ukraine," the expert concluded.