Anti-war march in New York City, Jan. 14, 2023. WW Photo: John Catalinotto
The recent aid package passed by the U.S. Congress reveals its true priorities - a multifront war that threatens the stability of the world.
Originally published in Workers World.
Anyone who thinks that the U.S. policy of continued arming and fully supporting the Israeli genocide is an accident or a mistake need only look at the $95 billion “supplemental aid” bill just passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden on April 24.
The same group of war criminals in Washington who back genocide in Gaza also support the NATO-provoked proxy war in Ukraine and maneuvers in the Pacific that threaten war against China.
The U.S. “supplemental” military aid package is a declaration of war on the world. It is an ominous and highly publicized military escalation on three fronts.
In an era when uncontested U.S. economic, productive and technological hegemony has decisively deteriorated, the only way that U.S. corporate power can assert its dominance is in the military destruction of its rivals. Instigating wars and imposing sanctions are desperate efforts to destroy the emerging poles of development, cooperation and trade in West Asia, Russia and China that are outside of U.S. control.
U.S. accelerates aid to Israel
The $26 billion in additional aid to Israel, part of the supplement package, is a public statement of complete support for genocide in Gaza. It confirms U.S. determination to escalate the brutal aggression.
Moreover, it is sending a threat of escalating war to Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and the vast majority of the people of the world who support the Palestinian people’s justified resistance to colonial occupation.
This $26 billion is in addition to Washington’s $4 billion a year allotment to Israel, which has already been committed through 2028, and the over 100 military aid transfers to Israel that are intentionally kept out of the accounting process.
Since World War II, the U.S. has provided more foreign aid to Israel than to any other country. In 2022, 99.7% of those funds went to the Israeli military.
The huge infusion of aid to Israel confirms the decision by U.S. corporate powers to prop up Washington’s primary strategic ally in West Asia. This has been the goal behind the billions of dollars allocated to the apartheid state over decades.
Despite receiving enormous funds and creating massive destruction, Zionist forces have failed to defeat the unified Palestinian Resistance. This is a political blow to Israel and a humiliating setback to U.S. imperialism’s position in the entire region.
For this reason, Israel and some U.S. policy strategists are seeking to widen the war by bombing Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, writing on X (formerly Twitter) that it “demonstrates strong bipartisan support for Israel and defends Western civilization.” He immediately announced plans to proceed with a major military operation in Rafah.
Funds for humanitarian assistance are supposedly included in the bill. Yet its language stipulates that financial allocations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees are prohibited. UNRWA is a lifeline for nearly two million people in Gaza and for Palestinians in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Without this U.N. agency’s help, there is no way to provide food aid, teachers or medical care.
Bipartisan backroom deals
Biden signed the massive foreign aid package after months of delays, backroom deals with Congressional Republicans and additional funding piled on.
This “National Security Supplemental” funding is in addition to the annual U.S. military budget. In December 2023, Biden signed the largest military budget in U.S. history, totaling $886 billion. The warmakers justified the bloated Pentagon budget by citing the cost of expanded U.S. military presence in the Asian Pacific region to counter China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
But vast increases in U.S. funding for Ukraine and Israel became contentious in Congress; ultimately, this funding was pushed into the present “supplemental” bill.
The $95 billion measure includes $61 billion to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel and $8 billion to Taiwan and the Pacific region. The bill was divided into separate packages and voted on separately, a cynical maneuver to allow Republicans and Democrats to pass it. Tacked on to the bill was anti-China legislation ordering TikTok’s parent company to sell the profitable social media platform to U.S. investors or it will be banned from the U.S.
Propping up collapsing Ukraine
A majority of the supplemental package is $61 billion to Ukraine to prop up a collapsing fascist regime that is so mired in corruption that huge amounts of equipment are pirated and resold on arrival.
Providing a huge infusion of high-tech military equipment — along with U.S. advisers, trainers, military contractors and mercenaries — is a desperate effort to prolong the war, although there is little chance of reversing Ukraine’s defeat.
The Ukrainian spring offensive ended in a total rout. After two years of predicting a great military victory, even the major U.S. media is describing the loss of one part of Ukraine after another. The country’s cobbled together military units defy their warring commanders and surrender or just walk away, all while the front lines collapse.
The biggest setback in the U.S.-instigated war in Ukraine is that U.S. strategists totally failed in their effort to impose “regime change” in Russia.
The goal, explicitly stated by Biden, was to turn the Russian ruble into rubble through the harshest sanctions ever enacted on a country. This effort failed despite every member of the European Union bowing to U.S. demands to impose total sanctions on Russia — which damaged their own economies.
To the great frustration of U.S. banks, the refusal of China — and the rest of the BRICS+ countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa — and most other countries of the Global South to go along with U.S demands to sanction Russia has publicly undercut Washington’s ability to impose its rule. Now the powerful U.S. sanctions on 40 countries are being challenged.
Sending billions of dollars worth of more high-tech military equipment, while profitable for U.S. corporations, won’t collapse the Russian economy or lead to military victory for U.S./NATO-trained and equipped forces in Ukraine.
Blinken threatens China – in Beijing
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China at the same time that Biden was signing the bill funding Taiwan, a direct violation of decades of signed “non-interference in Taiwan” agreements between the U.S. and China.
Blinken went to China not to promote diplomacy, but to make threats. The U.S. is demanding that China break off its trade with Russia and submit to U.S. sanctions. The U.S. asserts that any trade with Russia supports the Russian defense industry.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing following a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, Blinken arrogantly recalled that Washington has already imposed sanctions against more than 100 Chinese entities and is “fully prepared to act” and “take additional measures.”
The calculated threats are escalating. The Wall Street Journal on April 23 reported: “The U.S. is drafting sanctions that threaten to cut some Chinese banks off from the global financial system, arming Washington’s top envoy (Blinken) with diplomatic leverage that officials hope will stop Beijing’s commercial support of Russia’s military production.”
At a regular press conference on April 23, Chinese Foreign Ministry official Wang Wenbin called Blinken’s demands that China submit to U.S. sanctions on Russia “a very hypocritical and irresponsible approach.” He said, “The U.S. is providing billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine while unreasonably criticizing the normal trade and economic relations between Russia and China.” (tinyurl.com/27dfyp7e)
China’s view is that NATO instigated the Ukraine crisis by continuing its expansion in Europe and refusing to respect Russia’s national security concerns.
International rebukes of U.S. war funding
The $95 billion in additional war funding was denounced around the world. Leaders of countries which are directly targeted by U.S. imperialism clearly made the links.
Nicolás Maduro, president of U.S.-sanctioned Venezuela, asked: “Why doesn’t the United States approve $95 billion for the development of our nations and to end migration from Latin America and the Caribbean? They don’t approve a single dollar for development and approve $95 billion for war because war is the Empire’s big business.” (telesurenglish.net, April 23)
Bolivian President Luis Arce, in a broadcast by Venezolana de Televisión, also denounced the military aid bill: “Threats to peace on the planet have lately increased as the United States moved to provide $95 billion in aid to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. This clearly shows continued attempts to destabilize Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.” That funding, Arce maintained, should have been channeled into “the fight against famine, poverty and equality.” (tass.com, April 25)
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated: “The U.S. military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan will aggravate the global crises. The military aid to the Kiev regime is direct financial support of terrorist activity, [the aid] to Taiwan is an interference in China’s domestic affairs and to Israel is a direct path to the unprecedented escalation in the region.” (tass.com, April 20)
During Biden’s visit to China on a “diplomatic” mission, Yang Tao, director-general of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of China’s Foreign Ministry, stressed that the Taiwan question is the “first red line” that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi talked for over five hours with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken. The Chinese leadership’s response to Blinken, according to the Global Times, is that “if the U.S. truly hopes for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, it should faithfully aide by the one-China principle and the three-China-U.S. joining communiques, refrain from sending wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces in any way, stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification.” (April 27) (tinyurl.com/5c42sc3s)
In summary, the bill finances a drive toward World War III on three fronts: the U.S.-Israeli genocidal war aimed at Palestine, the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and preparation for a U.S.-led war in the Pacific against People’s China and the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea.
The powerful global movement that has taken bold steps to stop Israeli genocide will be stronger as it grows to understand that this whole imperialist system is its enemy.
Sara Flounders is co-founder of the International Action Center, as well as a member of the United National Antiwar Coalition, a contributing editor for Workers World and a coordinator of the Sanctions Kill campaign.
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