Foreign
Biden rushes to allocate final $9bn Ukraine aid before Trump’s inauguration
With 10 weeks to go until Donald Trump takes over, the Joe Biden administration is looking to push out the more than $9 billion of remaining funding appropriated by Congress for weapons and other security assistance to Ukraine, officials said.
Trump’s election victory spells immediate doubt for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, with Biden’s administration expected to sprint in its final days to ensure — insofar as possible — long-term US support.
Trump, who won an overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s election, has in the past voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and scoffed at the $175 billion in US assistance committed for Ukraine since Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
The 78-year-old tycoon has repeatedly boasted that he can end the war in 24 hours, without explaining how.
His aides have mused about conditioning aid to Kyiv to force concessions, with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance once bluntly saying he did not care what happened to Ukraine, seeing the country as strategically insignificant compared with the global US rivalry with China.
With 10 weeks to go until Trump takes over, the Biden administration is looking to push out the more than $9 billion of remaining funding appropriated by Congress for weapons and other security assistance to Ukraine, officials said.
The Biden team is also looking for structural ways to put European allies in greater charge of assistance to Ukraine before Trump returns, diplomats said.
In a pre-emptive “Trump-proofing” measure, NATO — the transatlantic alliance that has been criticized by the president-elect — has already agreed to take over from the United States in coordinating aid to Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also moved quickly with Trump in hopes of preserving ties with Kyiv’s top backer.
Zelensky called him Wednesday, offering flattery on his “tremendous victory” and voicing hope for “strong and unwavering US leadership” to bring a “just peace.”
– Not so simple –
Brian Taylor, a Russia expert at Syracuse University, said that if Trump seeks a direct role in Ukraine-Russia talks, he will “quickly find out that the details and the nuances are not so simple as simply telling everyone to stop shooting at each other.”
Even a deal to freeze the grinding conflict raises questions on where to draw battle lines, with Ukraine’s military fighting in regions that Russia says it has annexed.
At the same time, Taylor doubted that Europe could immediately replace US military assistance.
“I’m not sure Europe has the stomach or the institutional capacity to just step up and fill that role instantly, although maybe it will develop that capacity over time,” he said.
Olga Khakova, of the Atlantic Council, said that Biden could lift restrictions on use of Western weapons on Russian soil, a long-running demand of Kyiv, and boost Ukraine’s air defenses to protect its energy infrastructure.
Boosting Ukraine could also appeal to Trump by giving him a stronger negotiating hand, she said.
“Much is still unknown, but this offers a unique opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength and decisiveness and boldness,” Khakova said.
– Bringing both to table –
Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said Trump could ultimately be disappointed by Putin’s refusal to budge on demands, resulting in a deal politically unpalatable even in Trump’s Washington.
For now, Trump’s victory mostly means uncertainty, said Brian Finucane, a former State Department official now at the International Crisis Group.
“Further substantial US military aid seems doubtful, but Trump himself has been vague about how specifically he would deal with the conflict,” Finucane said.
Representative Michael Waltz, a Republican army veteran seen as a contender for a national security position, said in a pre-election interview that Trump could find ways to press Putin, including by tightening enforcement of sanctions on Russian energy exports.
“I think that will get Putin to the table. We have leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well,” Waltz told National Public Radio.
Trump, he said, is “very focused on ending the war rather than perpetuating it.”
AFP
President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pledged to “stop the transgender lunacy” on day one of his presidency, as Republicans — set to control both chambers of Congress and the White House — continue their push against LGBTQ rights.
“I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools,” the president-elect said at an event for young conservatives in Phoenix, Arizona.
He also vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports,” adding that “it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
Speaking to the AmericaFest conference in a border state he easily carried in the November election, Trump further promised immediate measures against “migrant crime,” vowed to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and doubled down on his talk of restoring US control of the Panama Canal.
Transgender issues have roiled US politics in recent years, as Democratic- and Republican-controlled states have moved in opposite directions on policy such as medical treatment and what books on the topic are allowed in public or school libraries.
Last week, when the US Congress approved its annual defense budget, it included a provision to block funding of some gender-affirming care for the transgender children of service members.
In his speech Sunday, which amounted to something of a victory lap, Trump made expansive promises for his second term — and drew a dark picture of the four years preceding it, under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter of whom he defeated in the 2024 election.
“On January 20, the United States will turn the page forever on four long, horrible years of failure, incompetence, national decline, and we will inaugurate a new era of peace, prosperity and national greatness,” Trump said, referring to his swearing-in.
– ‘Golden age’ –
“I will end the war in Ukraine. I will stop the chaos in the Middle East, and I will prevent, I promise, World War III.”
He added: “The golden age of America is upon us.”
Fresh Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, according to medics.
The casualties on Friday included at least eight people in an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp and 10 others in the town of Jabalia, among them seven children.
Efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have yet to succeed.
Sources involved in the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday that Qatar and Egypt had resolved some points of contention but key issues remain unresolved.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza following Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of 1200 people and the abduction of over 250 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Israel states that approximately 100 hostages are still being held, though it is unclear how many remain alive.
Gaza authorities report that Israel’s ongoing campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and displaced the majority of the 2.3 million residents.
Much of the territory has reportedly been devastated by the conflict.
President Biden signed the stopgap funding bill that will keep the government open until March, punting the thornier issues surrounding the nation’s finances to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
A bloated 1,500-page funding measure was exploded by Trump and his top ally Elon Musk earlier this week as they demanded a pared-down version.
The parties were able to cobble a stopgap bill together Friday evening, which passed the Senate early Saturday morning.
The package funds the government at current levels until March 14, 2025, and includes $100 billion in hurricane relief funds and $10 billion in aid to farmers.
With the stopgap funding only running until March, an almost certain clash is looming between Trump and GOP spending hardliners when Congress reconvenes in January.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open and delivers the urgently needed disaster relief that I requested for recovering communities as well as the funds needed to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Biden said in a statement after inking the deal.
The post Biden signs bipartisan funding bill to keep government open appeared first on New York Post.
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