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Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and several bipartisan congressional delegations will gather Friday for the annual Munich Security Conference. For more than 60 years, the conference has brought together world leaders, academics and businesspeople to champion transatlantic unity and the strength of the West. Harris and Blinken are each expected to speak publicly and meet with several leaders, including a planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that has not been officially confirmed.
At this meeting two years ago, President Zelenskiy appealed for international support just days before a full-scale Russian invasion. At the time, Harris and other U.S. officials promised not to let Ukraine down. President Zelenskiy is in an even more desperate situation this year, in part due to dysfunction in Washington.Ammo shortage due to lack of ammunition Delays in U.S. aid are already costing lives on the battlefield. Russia is taking advantage of this to step up attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
Harris and Blinken plan to tell Zelensky that help is on the way. But is it? U.S. officials will point to this week’s 70-29 Senate vote to approve a supplemental funding bill containing about $60 billion related to Ukraine as evidence that all is well.
“Our allies understand that we have domestic politics just like they do, and they want to make progress through Congress,” James O’Brien, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters Tuesday. We can consider it.” “I believe America will do the right thing,” he said.
There is less trust in Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has vowed not to take up the Senate bill and is under pressure from MAGA lawmakers not to pass any aid to Ukraine. He privately told lawmakers he plans to write his own bill, a process that won’t begin until next month, a congressional source told reporters.
So much for the short term. After former President Donald Trump threatened at a campaign rally this week to leave NATO members to the whims of Russian President Vladimir Putin, European allies collectively weighed in on America’s long-term commitment to the continent. I’m furious. In this regard, US officials in Munich will try to calm nerves by pointing out that the majority of Americans still support NATO. But they can’t say for sure that Trump won’t win, and they can’t be sure that Trump won’t take advantage of such threats.
“We cannot and will not make any promises. But we are fighting hard to help Ukraine,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the House delegation in Munich. told me. “We’re going there to show America that there are still people out there who are actively engaged and working hard to help America lead.”
Mr. Crow visited Kyiv last week and met with Mr. Zelensky along with Representative French Hill (R-Arkansas). Hill told me he is trying to educate his Republican colleagues about how aid money is being used and monitored.
More than half of that money will be returned to the U.S. economy through weapons purchases and replenishing U.S. arms inventories. European countries receive more total financial aid than the United States, and some countries account for a higher share of their gross domestic product.
Moreover, withdrawing support now would have a significant impact. The collapse of Ukraine’s economy could spread to Europe and the rest of the world. With the possibility of living (or dying) under Russian occupation, millions more Ukrainian refugees could flood into Europe, with potentially destabilizing effects. NATO allies will lose confidence in the alliance’s credibility. Dictators in the Middle East and Asia will be emboldened.
“The American people don’t want Putin to win. They know this is bad for national security,” Hill told me. “The time has come to put an end to Russian adventurism.”
For MAGA fans, none of these considerations seem to matter. For them, the goal is to end support operations in Ukraine. And to win, all they have to do is stop the government from functioning. To a large extent, they have already succeeded. Because of their obstructionism, Congress has not passed any Ukraine spending bill in the past 14 months.
This sad state of affairs is not primarily the fault of the Biden administration. But the Biden team should be more honest with allies, instead of pretending everything is fine. Help for Ukraine won’t come soon. It might not come at all. Trump might win. He might pull the US out of NATO.
These are all scenarios that many in both parties in Washington seek to prevent. But if the Biden team acknowledges that these scenarios may be inevitable, at least Europeans and Ukrainians can move forward with careful hedging and contingency planning.
For more than 60 years, U.S. officials have traveled to Munich to ensure Europeans that the United States would ultimately “do the right thing” — sometimes after exhausting all other options. is. This year, that may not be true.
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