U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after the Senate rejected House Republicans’ impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2024. ) speaks to the media.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
The Senate on Tuesday passed a multibillion-dollar aid package to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, legislation After six months of tough political battles, the bill made its way to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.
The final score was 79-18, a heartening display of bipartisanship in an era of deep political divisions.
“Six months of tireless work has paid off,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor after an earlier procedural vote.
Now that the bill has passed, it goes to Biden, who said he would sign it into law on Wednesday after the House passed the plan as four separate bills on Saturday.
In a statement late Tuesday, Biden said the bill would “strengthen our national security and send a message of American leadership to the world: We stand firmly for democracy and freedom and against tyranny and oppression.”
Funding includes about $60 billion for Ukraine aid, $26 billion for Israel, and $8 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific security.
On the spending front, the bill is similar to the $95 billion foreign aid bill the Senate passed in February, which was effectively stalled by the House weeks later.
But the bill also contains several other foreign policy proposals, including measures to force China’s TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a nationwide ban on the app. The terms would give ByteDance nine months to sell, although Biden could extend that period to a year.
TikTok will file a “legal challenge” if the bill is signed into law, according to an internal memo obtained by NBC News.
“Unfortunately, the House of Representatives has once again used the guise of critical foreign and humanitarian aid to block a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans,” a TikTok spokesperson said on Saturday after the House passed a ban. “bill.
So far this year, TikTok and ByteDance have jointly spent more than $7 million on lobbying and advertising to prevent Congress from passing legislation that would force the sale, Disclosure reports.
The foreign aid package has also been the focus of Republican infighting, which is the main reason the bill has stalled in Congress since Biden first proposed it in October.
House Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., threatened to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, in part over passing the foreign aid, calling it ” ‘A complete betrayal’ In March, she tabled a motion for the speaker to resign, but has yet to implement a mandatory vote.
These political threats, combined with an increasingly slim House Republican majority, led Johnson to actually send a $95 billion foreign aid bill to the Senate for weeks.
But Johnson faces new bipartisan pressure to provide funding after his decision last week to end the impasse on foreign aid following Iran’s April 13 attack.
Despite Greene’s threats, Johnson’s job remains somewhat secure with the public support of former President Donald Trump.
“Listen, we’ve got a majority, okay? He can’t just do whatever he wants to do,” Trump said in a radio interview on “The John Fredericks Show” on Monday. Thinks he’s a really good guy. “I think he works really hard. “
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