The Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package aimed at military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill on Wednesday. The bill was passed on Tuesday evening despite objections from the opposition.
The package includes $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine alone, the Pentagon said. Aid payments to the war-torn country could begin in the next few days.
The bill was passed by a vote of 79-18 in the Senate, the upper house of the US Parliament. President Biden praised lawmakers for passing the bill in a statement late Tuesday night. At this time, he said, this important law will protect our country and the world more. We are helping our friends who are fighting to defend themselves against the armed groups Hamas and dictatorships like (Russian President) Vladimir Putin.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “After six months of hard work and drama and reversals, America is sending a message to the world: We will not turn our backs on you.”
After the Senate passed a military aid bill for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is at war with Russia, said it strengthened America’s role as a defender of democracy and a leader of the free world.
Earlier, a similar aid package passed the US Senate last February. However, at that time, some of the country’s conservative lawmakers strongly opposed the passage of a new aid package to Ukraine. Later, the House of Representatives voted to pass the aid package.
Last week, Democrats and Republican lawmakers in the lower house of Congress came together to overturn that opposition. They eventually agreed to send US aid to Ukraine. In addition to foreign aid, the bill also included legislation to freeze Russian assets in various Western banks.
At the same time, US lawmakers also agreed to impose new sanctions against Russia, Iran and China. The law will force Chinese company ByteDance to sell its popular social media app TikTok to the US.
The Republican majority of lawmakers in the US House of Representatives voted against the foreign aid package bill on Saturday. Even a significant number of Republican senators opposed the bill. They oppose any new US aid to Ukraine.
The foreign aid package passed by the US Senate on Tuesday includes $26.4 billion in military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza. In addition, US ally Taiwan in the Asia Pacific region has been allocated $8.1 billion in aid. The United States is giving this financial aid to deal with Communist China.
Sources: BBC, Reuters.
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