Team Biden looks for creative ways to help Ukraine
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Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
With Congress paralyzed, the Biden administration is exploring — and implementing — creative ways to achieve its goals in Ukraine without signoff from Capitol Hill.
Why it matters: U.S. allies are depending on military aid to fight wars in both Europe and the Middle East. The U.S. government itself faces a shutdown in a month.
- But without a speaker of the House, it's hard to see how either war — or the U.S. government — will be funded.
- That's putting pressure on Biden officials to minimize the potential collateral damage from a problem — GOP infighting — that they didn't create.
Driving the news: In Luxembourg this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to encourage European officials to take concrete steps to capture the interest generated on some $200 billion in Russian assets held in European accounts, according to a U.S. official.
- In Marrakech last week, Yellen helped convince G-7 finance ministers and central bankers to publicly announce they are exploring the idea.
- This month, the Pentagon announced it sent Ukraine more than 1 million rounds of Iranian ammunition that it seized en route to Yemen.
- The Biden administration is also considering using an existing State Department grant program to help Ukraine purchase weapons, Politico reports.
But, but, but: Biden officials are clear that there are limits to their ability to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel and fund the government.
- "There's no gigantic set of resources that we don't need Congress for," Yellen told the New York Times last week.
Between the lines: There's a difference between skimming off interest from Russian sovereign assets and seizing them outright, as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick have called for.
- The efforts are intensifying, the Washington Post notes, but there are significant legal complications.
What we're watching: The Biden administration is preparing to send a new supplemental spending request to Congress this week, asking for more money for border security, Ukraine, Israel and potentially Taiwan.
The bottom line: A protracted government shutdown, coupled with a drawn-out war in the Middle East, could tip the economy into recession. The political fallout from an economic slowdown will be felt by both parties.
- While the White House plans to pin the political blame on that on the GOP, Biden might not escape unscathed, especially if U.S. workers feel the pain at home.
