Senate advances long-awaited aid bill for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and TikTok

The Senate on Tuesday presented a multibillion-dollar aid package to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, the Pathan Act, after six months of hard-fought political battles, with the bill on track to become law.

Senators passed the key procedural vote with broad bipartisan support, signaling the strength of the foreign aid package to pass on the final vote. It also starts the senators’ final debate clock, which will last up to 30 hours unless they agree to rush a final vote and return to a normally scheduled recess.

“I am asking my colleagues to work together to pass today’s supplement as quickly as possible,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Tuesday morning before the vote. “Don’t wait any longer, your friends around the world.”

If the Senate formally passes the bill on a final vote, it will go to President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign the bill into law if it passes. The plan passed the House Saturday as four separate bills.

The fund includes about $60 billion for aid to Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, and $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security.

In terms of spending, the bill is similar to the $95 billion foreign aid bill passed by the Senate. Within weeks of February, the bill had effectively stalled in the House.

But the bill contains several other foreign policy proposals, including forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company to take action. Sell ​​the ByteDance social media platform or face state bans on the app. The terms would give ByteDance nine months to sell, though President Joe Biden could extend that period by a year.

TikTok has withdrawn the proposal since the House passed it over the weekend.

TikTok will file a “legal challenge” if the bill is signed into law, according to an internal memo obtained by NBC News.

On Saturday, after the House passed a ban, a TikTok spokesperson said: “It is unfortunate that the House has once again used the guise of critical foreign and humanitarian aid to block a ban bill that would trample on the free speech rights of 170 million Americans. “Bill.

So far this year, TikTok and ByteDance have jointly invested more than $7 million, according to published reports, as they used lobbying and advertising to keep Congress from passing legislation that would have forced the sale.

The foreign aid package has also become a focus of Republican conflict, a major reason the bill has stalled in Congress since Biden first introduced it. October.

Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., threatened to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, for passing foreign aid, calling it ” https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1782439737283727410 In March, he raised a motion for the speaker’s resignation, but has yet to implement a binding vote.

This political threat, combined with an increasingly thin House Republican majority, led Johnson to send a $95 billion foreign aid bill to the Senate for weeks.

But Johnson last week decided to cut off foreign aid after an Iranian spokesman tried to launch an attack on April 13, after which he faced bipartisan pressure to resume funding.

Despite threats from Republican Greens, Johnson’s position is somewhat secure with former President Donald Trump’s public support.

“Listen, we have the majority, okay? It’s not like he can do whatever he wants. I think he’s a very good man,” Trump said in a radio interview on The John Frederick Show Monday night. “I think he works really hard.”