WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives on Thursday passed an overwhelming majority of legislation that would allow President Biden to use World War II law to lend arms to Ukraine quickly, sending the measure to Mr Biden’s bureau hours after he called on Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional emergency aid to Kyiv.
The 417 to 10 vote to invoke an eight-decade-old emergency law designed to fight Hitler reflects a growing sense of urgency for both parties in Congress to support the Ukrainian army as it digs for an ugly and protracted artillery war south and east. The Senate passed the law unanimously this month.
“The passage of this act allowed Britain and Winston Churchill to continue fighting and surviving the Nazi bombing while the United States could go to war,” said Jamie Ruskin, a Democrat from Maryland. “President Zelensky said Ukraine needed weapons to survive, and President Biden responded to that call.
The law refers to the Land Leasing Act of 1941, originally proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support the armament of British forces fighting Germany. The law allows the president to lease or lend military equipment to any foreign government “whose defense the president considers vital to the defense of the United States.”
Roosevelt was initially skeptical by members of the Isolationist Congress, who feared the bill would plunge the United States more directly into the conflict, and he worked frantically to gain public support for the measure.
“So our country will be what our people have declared it should be – an arsenal of democracy,” Roosevelt said after signing the bill. By the end of the war, the United States had provided nearly $ 50 billion in land leasing aid to allied nations, according to the Library of Congress.
Members of Mr Biden’s administration have given little hint as to how aggressively they may seek to use the law. A Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said Wednesday when asked about the administration’s opinion on the measure, saying he would not “get ahead of pending legislation.”
However, it could become an important tool for the White House as the United States seeks to impose long-term military support on Ukraine, even as Western arms flows into the country – including heavy equipment such as howitzers and armed drones – increase.
This will allow the United States to supply arms to Ukraine more quickly, removing various procedural obstacles. And that would essentially allow the Biden administration to donate huge tranches of weapons to Kyiv, at a time when Mr Biden said he had almost exhausted emergency military funding approved by Congress for emergency military action, approved in March.
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“The way we deal with the threat to the sovereignty of a democracy sends a message about how we will treat others and opponents like China are watching,” said Sen. John Cornin, a Republican from Texas and one of the bill’s original sponsors. “If we believe that America supports freedom and democracy, we must provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to protect its citizens.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden asked Congress for $ 33 billion in additional defense, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Funding, more than twice the $ 13.6 billion package passed by Congress last month, is expected to last at least five months, according to an administration official who provided details of the package on condition of anonymity before its official release.
Approximately half of this figure is expected to fund new military aid.
Emily Cochrane contributed to the reports.
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