With President Joe Biden dropping like a rock in the polls, some countries that have become used to the United States bankrolling them may be getting nervous.
Heading that list would likely be Ukraine, which has received about $72 billion from U.S. taxpayers since February 2022, according to the Kiel Institute, with another $60 billion on the way via a package Biden signed into law on Wednesday, according to NBC News.
The ink had barely dried on that spending bill when the Biden administration announced another $1 billion in equipment for that country, according to CNN.
That was followed Friday by the announcement of a “$6 billion long-term military aid package for Ukraine — the largest to date,” the outlet reported.
So it’s not surprising that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is frantically working on securing a long-term agreement with the United States — one specifically designed to bind Washington to Kyiv’s defense well beyond the current administration.
Zelenskyy revealed on Sunday that negotiators between the two countries are hammering out the details of a bilateral pact that would guarantee military hardware, joint arms production as well as financial assistance to Ukraine over the next decade.
“We are already working on a specific text,” Zelenskyy said in a Sunday evening address, according to the German news agency DPA. “Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all.”
He added, “We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation. We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and the next 10 years.”
Zelenskyy said the U.S. support “would range from military hardware to joint arms production and financial aid,” according to DPA.
“The agreement should be truly exemplary and reflect the strength of American leadership,” the Ukraine president said.
Zelensky announces that Ukraine is working on a security agreement with the U.S. that will fix levels of support for the next 10 years. The $61 billion was just the beginning. The next two U.S. presidents won’t be able to switch it off. pic.twitter.com/q1RWCxf93m
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) April 28, 2024
Earlier this month, Politico reported that the Biden administration was considering proposals to transfer the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which coordinates weapons shipments to Ukraine, to NATO’s control to “Trump-proof” it.
It said the move was “one of several new proposals that could help maintain the flow of arms to Kyiv under a second Donald Trump presidency.”
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, launched by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion, has streamlined the delivery of tens of billions of dollars in weapons, equipment and other aid to Ukraine, according to Politico.
“There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump re-election. And that’s something that the U.S. is going to have to get used to hearing because that is a fear and a legitimate one,” Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official, told the outlet.
“Pulling this under NATO kind of isolates it from a Trump presidency,” he added.
On March 1, 2022, about two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, CBS News reported that U.S. lawmakers were told that the war would likely last “10, 15 or 20 years — and that ultimately, Russia will lose.”
Should the United States continue to support Ukraine?
How anyone can predict the outcome of a war that lasts 20 years is difficult to comprehend, especially when even mundane economic forecasts such as the price of eggs are routinely missed.
Not to mention that the U.S. failed to foresee the eventual outcome of our own decades-long war in Afghanistan, which does not lend much credibility to the accuracy of the government’s prophetic powers.
But what if that prediction is right?
The U.S. economy is flailing, and Americans are struggling to make ends meet.
We cannot continue funding a war that could go on for decades and, worse, be committed to it by an administration determined to keep the war machine funded.
Our government could take a page out of the book of Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz, the first and only Ukraine-born member of Congress.
Spartz, who represents Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, voted against the $61 billion in aid, saying she opposed giving “blank checks” to Ukraine, according to The Associated Press.
“My responsibility is the protection of American people,” she said in an interview.
If only the president felt the same way.
