Financial Times reported Wednesday that the White House is expected to ask Congress to include military aid for Taiwan in the next spending bill to fund the war in Ukraine.
Citing people familiar with the plan, the report said the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is expected to submit a request to Congress for another “emergency” supplemental funding bill sometime this month, a type of spending not capped by the debt ceiling deal.
The White House will ask to include funds for Taiwan through Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to purchase US weapons. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included $2 billion in FMF for Taiwan, but the funds were not granted by congressional appropriators.
The news comes after the White House announced it was sending Taiwan a $345 million military aid package using the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to send weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles, the primary way the US has been arming Ukraine. The 2023 NDAA included $1 billion in PDA for Taiwan, and this marked the first time the Biden administration drew from the funds.
Both the PDA and FMF for Taiwan are unprecedented in the era of normalized relations between the US and China, which were established in 1979. Since then, the US has always sold weapons to Taiwan but never financed the purchases or provided them free of charge. From Beijing’s perspective, the new form of US support is extremely provocative, and Chinese government officials have issued several statements condemning the move.
According to Financial Times, including the Taiwan aid with the Ukraine spending bill could help win over support from Republicans who have opposed supporting the proxy war against Russia. Many Republicans who are against arming Ukraine say the US should be focused on arming Taiwan instead. “Adding supplemental funding for Taiwan will put some House Republicans in a more difficult position since many who oppose Ukraine funding remain in favor of supporting Taiwan,” Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute told the paper.
It’s unclear how much the White House will request for Ukraine and Taiwan. At this point, Congress has authorized $113 billion in spending on the war in Ukraine, which includes military aid, economic assistance, money to replenish US stockpiles, and funding for US troop deployments in Eastern Europe.
It is appropriate that these be in the same bill, since they represent two examples of provoking war by the same neocon madmen.
Neocons seek perpetual war. Killing people is their business and business is good.
I’m sure these arms will make Taiwan just as invincible as Ukraine is with our arms.
BIDEN, THE INFLATION & WAR WITH CHINA PRESDENT
False. Biden can be called the war with Russia President, but it is republican pressure that is moving him to take quicker action against China.
Democrats are pushing for all out war against Russia, populated by sub human orcs, while republicans agree that Russians are orcs, but that we should focus on China.
Either way, more military spending needed no matter who is in office.
But the democrats agree with republicans about China also. The parties just have different opinions on who we should prioritize our focus (money) on.
Oh yes absolutely. There is complete agreement that we need to focus more on our military, and an intense debate as to whether it is 60% spent on Russia and 40% on China or vica versa,
Actually not that intense.
Republicans attacked the Vice President for not visiting Taiwan. Their rhetoric was on the lame side.
Pelosi and other Democrats went there to kick up sh!t.
Hillary Clinton started this ball rolling during Obama’s administration.
NATO has already lost; 458 Aircraft, 245 helicopters, 5430 UAV’s, 427 Anti Aircraft systems, 11084 tanks inc. APC’s, 1142 multiple rocket launchers, 5719 rocket launchers and 12020 military automotive equipment.
There is a strategic need for Russia to fight NATO in a war of attrition. Russia will grind down NATO nations until it becomes existential to them. And then sue for peace on Russia’s terms. War crimes tribunals will be a part of that surrender.
It’s not “provocative”. This is not like arming Ukraine and placing missiles there that could bomb Moscow. Ukraine is a very big country with a land connection, next door to NATO that also has a land route to invade. With Ukraine on the NATO side, so that Russia doesn’t end by the mountains west of Ukraine like it used to, there is only flat land right to Moscow.
The conflict in Ukraine is about Kiev bombing Donbass daily, and amassing an invasion army to invade Donbass in February 2022. Russia always recognized that Ukraine is a separate nation, and Putin has repeated that. If only China could do the same with Taiwan.
Taiwan is not “provoking” China. It is an island. There is no land route and no NATO armies that could invade from Taiwan to Beijing.
And no, China isn’t planning to attack Taiwan either – they have deep economic ties, with Taiwanese investment in China being bigger than U.S. investment. Taiwan has tons of modern missiles that could hit Chinese ships. China also couldn’t beat the U.S. navy, and they wouldn’t want to ruin their immense investment in the U.S. economy, more than $1 trillion.
Yet they still talk as if Taiwan is “a rogue province,” thereby giving fodder to the WH.
This is all just part of the Chinese government not being able to change. If they’d just say what everyone knows, that Taiwan is a country with its own government, its own elections, its own police and military and courts, its own economy, its own schools, its own laws, then everyone would be fine. China quietly recognizes that every time Chinese and Taiwanese companies do business.
But the communists in the past declared that Taiwan was planning an invasion “like Japan did, and they were also on an island”. They blamed all their failures on Taiwan. “The KMT took our money with them when they left!” And Xi Jinping just can’t give that up. It’s useful for riling up young men. Instead of communism, which they pretend they still have but don’t, they have a foreign threat to rally around – Taiwan and the U.S. Kind of like the Biden administration is doing with Russia and China.
You missed the entire point. Back to board games.
Approximately a billion Chinese living on the mainland and the island of Taiwan disagree with your “obvious” separation. But, hey, you have a right to your opinion like everyone.
You do realize, of course, that this weapons stuff is just about the usual for us: the care and feeding of MICIMATT, right?
Our government is an open check book, but only if you are rich, making deadly weaopons or black. Best of luck to everyone else!
Not black. Non millionaire blacks get screwed over a LOT more than non millionaire whites.
But race means nothing, we all get screwed by our elected and appointed establishment millionaires, they too come in all colors.
The only color the establishment respects is green.
You are delusional.
We ALL get screwed pal. That’s the thing.
Nat’l debt $33T and counting. Credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA+. Buy rubles and renminbi.
The lunacy continues
The US wants to keep a “toe hold” in Ukraine and will be instrumental in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Ukraines in their attempt to achieve that goal in order to eventually control the region. Something similar to the Korean situation where the US can make life miserable for the Mainland Chinese and even many Chinese in Taiwan and others who do not want a war with the mainland but the US will have none of it. Shame on the US war mongers who have such a low regard for the living.
The Biden neocons have left a trail of blood, death, terror, and ruins and annihilated countries and they still don’t have enough. How much crazier can these war criminals get? And yes, what they do to the Ukrainian people is a war crime.
The war criminals expect to win the next election, would we, the people, be that sick and would elect such people again?