US Funding for Taiwan

The Cynic

A new evil is ripe.

“Joe Biden to ask Congress to fund Taiwan with Ukrainian budget” – Financial Times.

Nowhere does it say “at the expense” of the Ukrainian budget. There is no talk of reducing funding for Ukraine or allocating funds to Taiwan intended for Ukraine. What then writes the Financial Times?

Military assistance to Ukraine (which in fiscal 2023 amounted to $45 billion, since May there has been talk of an increase in the budget for 2024, a decision will be made in September) goes through several mechanisms, you probably heard about them:

▪️PDA – Biden’s presidential prerogative;
▪️USAI – Ukraine Assistance Initiative, allocated by the Pentagon;
▪️FMF – financing of foreign armies, allocated by Congress.

So.

Due to the growing threat from China, in order to speed up the supply of weapons to Taiwan, Biden will propose to Congress to add direct military assistance to Taiwan in the FMF (Foreign Military Financing) article. Thus, for the first time in history, Taiwan will be able to receive military assistance from the US Congress.

Previously, Taiwan purchased all American weapons at its own expense. And the recent $345 million US aid package to Taiwan was allocated under the presidential prerogative of the PDA. And now it is proposed to adopt the FMF, which is the prerogative of Congress. And since recently FMF aid has been allocated mainly to Ukraine, the Financial Times called it the “Ukrainian budget.”

What is it for?

As far as aid to Taiwan is concerned, there is strong bipartisan support in Congress. As for helping Ukraine, there is a small layer of MAGA-Republicans (Trumpists) in Congress who want to help Taiwan (they have a fixation on China), but do not want to help Ukraine.

But if it is possible to combine aid to Ukraine and Taiwan into one package (FMF), then it will be more difficult for the MAGA-Trumpists to impede aid to Ukraine – at least, this will put them in a more difficult position.

That is, this is such a legislative ploy to deprive them of the opportunity to vote against aid to Ukraine. They will have to vote for everything en masse – voting for Taiwan, voting for Ukraine.

So this is good news for Ukraine, Taiwan, and the entire free world.

PS The Financial Times also says that Taiwan today expects US arms supplies totaling $23 billion, which were announced 5 years ago (!). That is, the problem that some of the weapons promised to Ukraine have not yet been delivered is not a malicious delay on the part of the United States. But in the fact that in the 30 years of relative calm after the end of the Cold War, Americans have become too relaxed and are now slowly and painfully coming out of hibernation, swaying production and going through bureaucratic hell.