On Tuesday, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined with 78 other members of the Senate to pass a massive $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden this morning, and aid is expected to begin flowing nearly immediately to those countries. While Sen. Baldwin joined 48 Democratic and 31 Republican Senators to pass the bill, Wisconsin’s Senior Senator, Ron Johnson (R-WI), voted to oppose the bill. Sen. Johnson cited the lack of any border security policy as his primary reasoning for opposing the legislation.
Speaker Mike Johnson previously stated that this foreign aid bill’s passage would be contingent on the concurrent passage of legislation addressing the southern border crisis. However, following this change in posture and the now-passage of the aid bill, there remains no congressional passage of any bill addressing the southern border, asylum reforms, or any other policy change coming out of Congress.
The bill is set to provide the bulk of its cost, $60.8 billion, to Ukraine to assist with its war against Russia. An additional $26.3 billion is allocated to assist Israel in their battle against Hamas, $9 billion in global humanitarian assistance, and slightly over $8 billion for Taiwan and the greater Indo-Pacific to deter China’s growing threats in the region. The legislation further included sanctions against Iran and Russia, as well as carrying the legislation introduced by Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher that may result in the banning of TikTok in the US.
Despite Sen. Baldwin being increasingly vocal about her support of the Palestinian people, she supported the legislation nonetheless. She recently joined with other far-left Democrats in Congress to call for Israel to abide by the wishes of Hamas and declared her support for a permanent ceasefire without stipulations surrounding Israeli hostages. On Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Sen. Baldwin defended her stance to the outlet regarding offensively arming Israel, saying that she feels there are adequate “conditions and safeguards” on the aid. She specifically cited Leahy Laws that prohibit the US government from funding militaries implicated in human rights violations, however, she did state that she “would probably wish for some more” of the cited safeguards when it comes to arming Israel.
