The key to unlocking desperately needed lethal aid for Ukraine in the GOP-led House seems to be finding a formulation that Donald Trump can accept.
The key to unlocking desperately needed lethal aid for Ukraine in the GOP-led House seems to be finding a formulation that Donald Trump can accept. The former president has displayed characteristic ambiguity on the value of U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against a Russian invasion, leading the GOP into internecine squabbling and, ultimately, paralysis. But Republicans have recently shown some signs of life on the issue. GOP leadership is flirting with structuring support for Ukraine as a loan, thereby giving Republicans who have inaccurately branded U.S. support for its besieged partner a “blank check” funneled into a “slush fund” routinely raided by the “thugs” in power in Kyiv a way out of the rhetorical corner into which they’ve painted themselves.
“The loan option is being taken seriously in the House, as well, where Ukraine aid has been stalled for months,” Politico reported on Tuesday. The outlet notes that the loan gimmick would have no effect on the majority of the funds that would have been appropriated for Ukraine’s defense in the stalled Senate supplemental, the vast majority of which will never leave the United States. They are “pumped right back into America’s defense industrial base.” Only about $12 billion of the $60 billion total allotted to Ukraine’s defense is transferred to the country directly, which would be prohibited from going to budget items such as pensions. Those funds are strictly designed to keep the government’s lights on — a rational priority since the whole point of this project is to preserve Kyiv’s sovereignty from Russian domination.
All eyes are now on Donald Trump, but the former president may not be keen on supporting even this workaround because it’s unlikely that such a “loan” would ever be paid back. As Senator Lindsey Graham noted, the disbursement would likely be structured as a “no-interest, waivable loan.” Although foreign aid in recent decades has mostly taken the form of grants, providing Ukraine with a forgivable interest-free loan would not be unprecedented. There are models to which the U.S. can appeal if this is the route Republicans intend to take.
The Congressional Research Service provides some examples:
The largest and most hotly debated debt forgiveness actions have been implemented for much broader foreign policy reasons with a more strategic purpose. Examples include Poland, during its transition from a communist system and centrally planned economy (1990—$2.46 billion); Egypt, for making peace with Israel and helping maintain the Arab coalition during the Persian Gulf War (1990—$7 billion); and Jordan, after signing a peace accord with Israel (1994—$700 million). Similarly, the United States forgave about $4.1 billion in outstanding Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi debt in November 2004 and helped negotiate an 80% reduction in Iraq’s debt to creditor nations later that month.
This is where the rubber meets the road. If the forgivable loan structure is sufficient to satisfy Ukraine-skeptical Republicans, it will demonstrate that those who objected to the provision of aid on the basis that Ukraine’s vampiric demands on the U.S. treasury were unacceptable were either dishonest or didn’t know what they were talking about. If it is not, that will prove that the Republican objections to supporting Ukraine are not predicated on parochial concerns. Rather, they simply object to backing Kyiv in its defense against Russia’s war of territorial conquest whatsoever.
Quite the conundrum, and one of the GOP’s own making. But if they’re willing to take the lifeline they’ve been offered, the loan structure could help them find a way out of this mess.