Put America’s interests first

On Saturday, April 20, the House of Representatives passed legislation to provide more than $60 billion for the war in Ukraine, plus more than $30 billion related to Israel, humanitarian relief, defense priorities in the Indo-Pacific region, and more. The Senate is expected to take up and pass the bill soon. Once President Biden signs the bill, it will mark the end of a lengthy political battle that defied the typical partisan lines.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been pushing to pass President Biden’s supplemental spending package for months, but it wasn’t until Speaker Mike Johnson got behind the effort that the bill was able to move in the Republican-controlled House. Even with Johnson’s support, the bill only passed out of the powerful House Rules Committee because of Democratic support, something that has never happened since the Committee began recording its votes publicly. The final vote on passage was 311-112, with all Democrats voting in favor and most Republicans voting against.

That there was such a fight over this bill is a testament to conservative lawmakers in the House and Senate who for months fought to restructure America’s approach to Ukraine. Despite inflammatory rhetoric from proponents of the legislation, opponents do not want Putin to win the war and most lawmakers recognize—correctly—that it is in America’s interest to see Ukraine prevail. The substance of the opposition is a realistic recognition that America is facing numerous challenges at home, like the crisis at the border, rampant violent crime, and the crippling cost of gas, groceries, and rent due to inflation, and abroad, namely the threat of China. After 20 years of costly war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the national debt closing in on $35 trillion (and a greater than 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio), prudent lawmakers recognize that we must prioritize among our interests. America cannot and ought not be expected to do everything.

One of the major ways in which the recent Ukraine supplemental fails to recognize this essential reality is that it does nothing to encourage America’s allies to fulfill their obligations to ensure global stability.

In 2014, following Russia’s invasion of Crimea, each NATO member committed to spend a minimum of 2 percent of their nation’s GDP on defense by 2024. Though investments have improved since that time, last year just 11 members met the 2 percent mark, including the United States, Poland, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, United Kingdom, and Slovakia; 19 fell short, including most notably both France and Germany. To put these contributions in perspective, the U.S. defense budget is twice the size of the rest of NATO combined.

Prior to the passage of this most recent package, the United States had already spent more than $113 billion on the war in Ukraine since 2022. That’s about the size of Florida’s budget in 2024 and just a bit less than the entire budget for the Air Force. Russia’s actions in eastern Europe are less important to the United States than the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party bent on expanding its hegemony in the Indo-Pacific. To the extent Russia is a threat, it is a greater threat to our European allies in NATO than to us. Furthermore, confronting China will require U.S. military leadership in the region. A defense industrial base dedicated to Ukraine is one that is not optimized to meetings the demands of the most pressing military priority of the 21st century: China.

Any further contributions to the war in Ukraine ought to have been predicated on greater leadership from our NATO allies, as well as meaningful accountability for the money and a clear plan from the administration for bringing the war to a close. The recent bill failed on all three counts.

The bill also failed to respond to the challenges the American people are facing at home. The principle that we should take the security of our nation’s borders as seriously as the security of Ukraine’s is self-evident. The Biden administration’s border policies have resulted in a human rights calamity, a plague of illegal drugs including the Chinese fentanyl driving the opioid crisis, violent crime, and a host of other ills. In February, Speaker Johnson said, “The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world. It is what the American people demand and deserve.” He was right then, and the border is still a catastrophe. It is disappointing to see the Speaker succumb to pressure to put Ukraine above this clear and obvious national priority.

Recent college graduates have not lived a day when America was not at war. They carry mountains of debt while the costs of everyday life have never been higher, or the prospect of affording a home further out of reach. American cities are plagued by violent crime, homelessness, and drugs; rural America has been hallowed out by choices about the kind of economy America ought to be. Depression and suicide are epidemic. Americans are getting married later, if at all, and having fewer children than ever. All is not lost, but recovering from these myriad challenges will require courageous leaders willing to do what is necessary. The events of last week were a missed opportunity to demonstrate such leadership of putting Americans’ interests first.