U.S. Congress Prepares Israel, Ukraine Spending Bill

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. congressional efforts to decouple Israel and Ukraine aid, a devastating fire in Denmark, and the International Monetary Fund’s latest G-7 growth predictions.

Money, Money, Money

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday announced plans to present a new national security spending package in Congress this week. The four-part package aims to finally pass long-stalled foreign aid legislation by decoupling Ukraine aid from Israel aid while also appeasing Republicans who have opposed past funding measures. Voting could take place as soon as 72 hours after the text is released, allowing lawmakers to read the drafts and propose amendments.

The package is currently split into four separate bills, reflecting most of the $95.3 billion aid package that the Senate passed in February, which allocated $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion for humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and $5 billion for Indo-Pacific allies trying to counter China.

Under Johnson’s plan, House members would have to approve Israel and Ukraine aid separately. Money for Kyiv would go toward manufacturing munitions in the United States and replenishing U.S. military stockpiles. A third bill would assist Taiwan and other U.S. allies. And a fourth would address various Republican wishes, including requiring countries to pay back some of the aid given to them, other funds being financed by selling off seized Russian assets, and forcing TikTok parent company ByteDance to divest itself of the popular social media app or face a ban. The House approved a similar TikTok bill with bipartisan support last month, but the Senate has since stalled on it.

“We know that the world is watching us to see how we react,” Johnson said. “They’re watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe—and we will.”

Iran’s strike against Israel last Saturday increased pressure on Johnson to hold a vote on Israeli aid. Yet the House speaker continues to face opposition from both the far left and far right. Some liberal Democrats have protested Washington sending unfettered funding to Israel, pointing to the Israeli military’s attack on a humanitarian aid convoy on April 1 that killed seven volunteers, escalating violence in the West Bank, and worsening famine in Gaza.

It is unclear if Johnson’s proposal includes sending around $9 billion in assistance to Gaza. “There is no circumstance that we could support anything that does not include humanitarian aid,” House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told Axios.

Meanwhile, some conservative lawmakers condemned Johnson’s decision to advance Ukraine funding not tied to border security provisions that the GOP wants and Democrats oppose. On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie announced that he will co-sponsor Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to oust Johnson from the speakership for failing to include migration reforms at the U.S. southern border in the spending proposal. Massie did not say when they might put that resolution into motion. “I am not resigning,” Johnson said on Tuesday.

On Monday, Biden administration officials said the package must include aid to both Ukraine and Israel, and the Senate majority and minority leaders urged Johnson to pass the $95.3 billion, Senate-approved package as is. This means that even if Johnson’s bill passes the House, which Republicans hold a thin majority over, its passage in the Senate remains uncertain.

Today’s Most Read

• How Will Israel Respond to the Iranian Attack? by Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack
• 3 Ways Israel Could Respond to Iran by Jack Detsch
• America Fueled the Fire in the Middle East by Stephen M. Walt

What We’re Following

Historic building blaze. Denmark’s former stock exchange building caught fire on Tuesday, causing its iconic dragon spire to collapse. “[Four hundred] years of Danish cultural heritage” went up in flames, Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt wrote on X, formerly Twitter. It is unclear what caused the fire, which burned down as much as half of the old building before firefighters could get the blaze under control. The historic building, which dates back to 1625, is one of the oldest in Copenhagen and is now used by the Danish Chamber of Commerce. It was undergoing renovations at the time of the fire.

Deputy Prime Minister Troels Lund Poulsen described the scene as Denmark’s “own Notre Dame moment,” referring to the 2019 fire that destroyed much of the Paris monument. On Monday, exactly five years after that incident, Notre Dame completed the first stage of its restoration process. The cathedral is scheduled to reopen to the public on Dec. 8.

Standout performance. The U.S. economy is expected to grow at double the rate of the other G-7 nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasted on Tuesday. High household spending and investments explain the 2.7 percent raise this year, a 0.6-percentage-point increase from the IMF’s last prediction. Canada touted the next best performance at 1.2 percent, and Germany had the weakest at 0.2 percent.

IMF economists warned Washington that its strong performance was partly due to unsustainable fiscal policies, saying overspending could spark high inflation and threaten global stability. “Something will have to give,” the IMF said. Analysts believe that the IMF’s ruling could indicate that the U.S. Federal Reserve might cut interest rates less than previously thought.

Accra’s debt deal. Ghana failed to secure a debt restructuring deal of $13 billion on Monday. Accra paused formal talks with two bondholder groups after the IMF said Ghana did not meet the debt sustainability parameters approved last year. Regional African banks, one of the bondholder groups, also expressed concerns about the agreed-upon terms. Western managers and hedge funds led the other bondholder group.

The ruling is a major setback for Ghana, which defaulted on most of its $30 billion in external debt in December 2022. Experts say it also signals the struggles that many developing nations face to secure aid despite Zambia sealing a $3.5 billion deal in eurobonds last month. Ghana had originally hoped to conclude IMF talks by March.

Odds and Ends

Colombians don’t need to water down their romance. Bogotá Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán urged couples last week to shower together to help ration water during the city’s drought. “This is an educational exercise in saving water, nothing else,” he said, asking residents to abandon their daily hygiene regimens and not take baths. Nine months from now, we’ll see how the capital’s water policy affects birthrates.