US President Joe Biden signs $146.5 billion war aid measure with assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

TikTok said it will wage a legal challenge against what it called an “unconstitutional” effort by Congress.

“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” the company said in a statement.

Biden underscored that the bill also includes a surge of about $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza suffering as the Israel-Hamas war continues.

Biden said Israel must ensure the humanitarian aid for Palestinians in bill reaches Gaza “without delay”.

House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed a vote on the supplemental aid package for months as members of his party’s far right wing, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, threatened to move to oust him if he allowed a vote to send more assistance to Ukraine. Those threats persist.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 presidential GOP nominee, has complained that European allies have not done enough for Ukraine. While he stopped short of endorsing the supplemental funding package, his tone has shifted in recent days, acknowledging that Ukraine’s survival is important to the United States.

Indeed, many European leaders have long been nervous that a second Trump presidency would mean decreased US support for Ukraine and for the NATO military alliance.

The European anxiety was heightened in February when Trump in a campaign speech warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that don’t meet defence spending goals if he returns to the White House.

It was a key moment in the debate over Ukraine spending. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg quickly called out Trump for putting “American and European soldiers at increased risk”. Biden days later called Trump’s comments “dangerous” and “un-American” and accused Trump of playing into Putin’s hands.

But in reality, the White House maneuvering to win additional funding for Ukraine started months earlier.

Biden, the day after returning from a whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv following Hamas militants’ stunning October 7 attack on Israel, used a rare prime time address to make his pitch for the supplemental funding.

At the time, the House was in chaos because the Republican majority had been unable to select a speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who had been ousted more than two weeks earlier. McCarthy’s reckoning with the GOP’s far right came after he agreed earlier in the year to allow federal spending levels that many in his right flank disagreed with and wanted undone.

Far-right Republicans have also adamantly opposed sending more money for Ukraine, with the war appearing to have no end in sight. Biden in August requested more than $US20 billion ($30.8 billion) to keep aid flowing into Ukraine, but the money was stripped out of a must-pass spending bill even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Washington to make a personal plea for continued US backing.

By late October, Republicans finally settled on Johnson, a low-profile Louisiana Republican whose thinking on Ukraine was opaque, to serve as the next speaker. Biden during his congratulatory call with Johnson urged him to quickly pass Ukraine aid and began a months-long, largely behind-the-scenes effort to bring the matter to a vote.

In private conversations with Johnson, Biden and White House officials leaned into the stakes for Europe if Ukraine were to fall to Russia. Five days after Johnson was formally elected speaker, national security adviser Jake Sullivan outlined to him the administration’s strategy on Ukraine and assured him that accountability measures were in place in Ukraine to track where the aid was going — an effort to address a common complaint from conservatives.

On explicit orders from Biden, White House officials also avoided directly attacking Johnson over the stalled aid.

Johnson came off to White House officials as direct and an honest actor throughout the negotiations, according to a senior administration official. Biden had success finding common ground with Republicans earlier in his term to win the passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure deal, legislation to boost the US semiconductor industry, and an expansion of federal health care services for veterans exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits. And he knew there was plenty of Republican support for further Ukraine funding.

Biden praised Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying in the end they “stepped up and did the right thing.”

“History will remember this moment,” Biden said. “For all the talk about how dysfunctional things are in Washington, when you look over the past three years, we’ve seen it time and again on the critical issues. We’ve actually come together.”

At frustrating moments during the negotiations, Biden urged his aides to “just keep talking, keep working,” according to the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

So they did. In a daily meeting convened by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, the president’s top aides — seated around a big oval table in Zients’ office — would brainstorm possible ways to better make the case about Ukraine’s dire situation in the absence of aid.

Steve Ricchetti, counsellor to the president, and legislative affairs director Shuwanza Goff were in regular contact with Johnson. Goff and Johnson’s senior staff also spoke frequently as a deal came into focus.

The White House also sought to accommodate Johnson and his various asks. For instance, administration officials at the speaker’s request briefed Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., two conservatives who were persistent antagonists of Johnson.

All the while, senior Biden officials frequently updated McConnell as well as key Republican committee leaders, including Reps. Michael McCaul and Mike Turner.

In public, the administration deployed a strategy of downgrading intelligence that demonstrated Russia’s efforts to tighten its ties with US adversaries China, North Korea and Iran to fortify Moscow’s defence industrial complex and get around US and European sanctions.

For example, US officials this month laid out intelligence findings that showed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry. Earlier, the White House publicised intelligence that Russia has acquired ballistic missiles from North Korea and has acquired attack drones from Iran.

The $US61 billion can help triage Ukrainian forces, but Kyiv will need much more for a fight that could last years, military experts say.

Realistic goals for the months ahead for Ukraine — and its allies — include avoiding the loss of major cities, slowing Russia’s momentum and getting additional weaponry to Kyiv that could help them go on the offensive in 2025, said Bradley Bowman, a defense strategy and policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.

“In our microwave culture, we tend to want immediate results,” Bowman said.

“And sometimes things are just hard and you can’t get immediate results. I think Ukrainian success is not guaranteed, but Russian success is if we stop supporting Ukraine.”