The Republican Party of the United States is going to give Vladimir Putin its greatest strategic victory since he came to power just 24 years ago. This political formation has decided to block the delivery of more aid to Ukraine if in exchange the Government of Joe Biden does not implement a series of measures to control illegal immigration that include, among other sections, the construction of 322 kilometers of the wall on the border with Mexico that Donald Trump promised to build in 2015.
So the help of United States to Ukraine is over, at least until 2024. “History will judge them harshly,” White House spokeswoman Karina Saint-Pierre said yesterday Thursday in her daily press conference. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden sent an unusual message from the White House in which he declared himself “stunned” at the legislative logjam over the $61.4 billion (€56.9 billion) of military support for Ukraine. “Congressional Republicans want to give Putin the biggest gift he could imagine and abandon our leadership in the world, not just in Ukraine, but beyond,” the president said.
Biden was very clear about the repercussions not only for Ukraine, but for the world, of letting kyiv fall. “If Putin conquers Ukraine, It won’t stop there. He has made it clear that he is going to continue. And, if Putin attacks a NATO ally, we will see something we don’t want: American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers,” he said. The president declared himself willing to negotiate a tightening of border security in exchange for the Help kyiv be unblocked.
Six hours later, Senate Republicans, who until now had been almost unanimously in favor of delivering the aid, blocked it from being voted on in that chamber. That could force the White House to enter into negotiations, something that Biden, who knows very well how the American political system works, wants to avoid at all costs.
If the president begins to negotiate with the leader of the Republican minority of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, he will have achieved a political victory of the first order, given that institutionally his position is far below that of Biden, who is head of State and Government . From there, McConnell could dedicate themselves to humiliating Biden and to obtain all kinds of concessions that will allow him to regain popularity among his bench and maintain his position after next year’s elections. That is the strategy that he employed, with irrefutable success, against an inexperienced Barack Obama, whom he defeated outright on several occasions.