US aid to Ukraine crashes into Trump's border wall

The Republican Party of the United States is going to give Vladimir Putin his biggest strategic victory since he came to power just 24 years ago. This political formation has decided to block the delivery of more aid to Ukraine if in exchange the Government of Joe Biden does not implement a series of measures to control illegal immigration that include, among other sections, the construction of 322 kilometers of the wall on the border with Mexico that Donald Trump promised to build in 2015.

So US aid to Ukraine is over, at least until 2024. “History will judge them harshly,” White House spokeswoman Karina Saint-Pierre said yesterday Thursday in her daily press conference.. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden sent an unusual message from the White House in which he declared himself “stunned” at the legislative logjam over the $61.4 billion (€56.9 billion) of military support for Ukraine.. “Congressional Republicans want to give Putin the biggest gift he could imagine and abandon our leadership in the world, not just in Ukraine, but beyond,” the president said.

Biden was very clear about the repercussions that letting Kiev fall would have not only for Ukraine, but for the world. “If Putin conquers Ukraine, he won't stop there. He has made it clear that he will continue. And if Putin attacks a NATO ally, we will see something we don't want: American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers,” he said.. The president declared himself willing to negotiate a tightening of border security in exchange for aid to kyiv being unblocked.

Six hours later, Senate Republicans, who until now had been almost unanimously in favor of delivering the aid, blocked it from being voted on in that chamber.. That could force the White House to enter into negotiations, something that Biden, who knows very well how the American political system works, wants to avoid at all costs.

If the president begins to negotiate with the leader of the Republican minority of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, he will have achieved a political victory of the first order, given that institutionally his position is far below that of Biden, who is head of State and Government. From there, McConnell could dedicate himself to humiliating Biden and obtaining all kinds of concessions that would allow him to regain popularity among his caucus and maintain office after next year's elections.. That is the strategy he used, with irrefutable success, against an inexperienced Barack Obama, whom he defeated in every line on several occasions.

But the situation in the Senate is only half of the crisis. The other half is in the House of Representatives. Senate Republicans, with their blocking minority, demand changes in immigration policy, especially the right to asylum, which for Democrats are unaffordable. Those in the House of Representatives, where they have a majority, demand the full approval of the law known as HR2 (HR. stands for the House of Representatives), which introduces very harsh measures into the immigration system, including the aforementioned construction of the wall.

The problem is that HR2 only has the support of Republicans. And they do not have a majority in the Senate. Therefore, it is impossible to approve it. The strategy of the president of the House of Representatives, the Trumpist Mike Johnson, is, therefore, to impose conditions on immigration so harsh that aid to Ukraine is impossible to approve.

It is Trump's triumph without Trump. And, obviously, Putin's. And one more disaster in US foreign policy under Biden, after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the failure to foresee the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 that triggered the current war in Gaza. A war that captures the attention of the US. Yesterday, not a single one of the country's binational newspapers – New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today – had a single reference to Ukraine on the homepage of their websites.

Meanwhile, in what appears to be a bad omen for kyiv, the American media has begun to report stories about how the Ukrainians have not been able to use the weapons that the United States gave them, their strategic mistakes and their obstinacy in pursue erroneous or unattainable goals. It is the same type of news that appears whenever the US wants to disassociate itself from a war, be it Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.. History repeats itself, to the satisfaction of Vladimir Putin.