WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law a $95 billion package to provide critical aid to Ukraine and enact a provision that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok.
“It’s going to make America safer, it’s gonna make the world safer, and it continues America’s leadership in the world, and everyone knows gives vital support to America’s partners,” Biden said Wednesday in remarks praising the package’s passage. “And so they can defend themselves against threats to their sovereignty.”
The Senate passed the long-awaited foreign aid package Tuesday in a 79-18 vote. Fifteen Republicans and three Democrats voted against the legislation. The House passed the package on Saturday.
Biden on Wednesday acknowledged the time it took for the bill to gain the bipartisan support it needed to pass.
“It was a difficult path,” he said. “It should have been easier and it should have gotten there sooner. But in the end, we did what America always does: We rose to the moment, came together and we got it done.”
Biden condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin while stressing the urgency of providing aid to Ukraine, saying that in the next few hours the U.S. will begin sending equipment to the country from its own stockpiles and then will replace those stockpiles with new American-made products that include patriot missiles and artillery shells.
“In other words, we’re helping Ukraine while at the same time investing in our own industrial base, strengthening our own national security, supporting jobs in nearly 40 states all across America,” he said.
“America stands with our friends, we stand up against dictators,” he added. “We bow to no one, to no one. Certainly not Vladimir Putin.”
Biden reiterated his stance that Israel has a right to defend itself in its war against Hamas and that the foreign aid package he signed into law will allow the U.S. to help replenish Israel’s air defense and provide other critical aid in an effort to prevent attacks similar to the strikes carried out by Iran this month.
The president noted that the foreign aid package also provides $1 billion of additional humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, which he said would allow the U.S. to send food, medical supplies and clean water to the region.
Biden said border security should have been in the package and vowed to “come back to that in another moment, another time.”
The president concluded his remarks without mentioning the package’s crackdown on TikTok.
The package includes $60 billion in aid to Ukraine that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said would give his country “a chance at victory” against Russia. It also includes $26 billion in assistance to Israel and humanitarian relief in Gaza, in addition to $8 billion for security in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
And it will give TikTok’s China-based parent company nine months, which the president could extend to a year, to sell the popular social media platform or be banned in the U.S. That puts TikTok closer than ever before to a prohibition while ensuring that it won’t be banned until after the 2024 election. TikTok has said it will fight the law in court once it is signed into law.
“Finally, finally, finally. Tonight after more than six months of hard work, and many twists and turns in the road, America sends a message to the entire world: We will not turn our back on you,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor moments before the vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., heralded Tuesday as “an important day for America” after months of GOP infighting over whether to keep funding Ukraine. McConnell said “we’ve turned the corner on the isolationist movement” and attributed the delay to two men: former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson for his “demonization of Ukraine” and…
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