When President Biden made a last-minute request to Congress recently that lawmakers include an extra $24 billion in military aid for Ukraine in their year-end spending package, it received little attention and no serious consideration from members of either party.
That was partly because Ukraine had yet to spend the last multibillion-dollar infusion lawmakers approved early this year to back the country in its war with Russia. But the chilly reception also reflected how reality has set in on Capitol Hill that the election of Donald J. Trump has effectively brought the era of U.S. military support to Ukraine to an end.
The president-elect has made no secret of his animus toward Kyiv and the nearly $175 billion the United States has invested in its fight against Russia.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, dismissed Mr. Biden’s Thanksgiving-week request by noting that the question of how — and whether — to continue helping Ukraine was no longer up to him.
“It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that the G.O.P. would wait for direction from Mr. Trump when it came to Ukraine.
While a bipartisan consensus has long existed in Congress for supporting Kyiv in its struggle against Russia, a majority of House Republicans have opposed sending military aid for more than a year. And in the weeks since Mr. Trump’s election, several of the staunchest Republican boosters of providing funding for Ukraine’s war have markedly changed their tone to match his, even as they continue to speak about the importance of supporting the country itself.
Instead, they have said that it is in both Kyiv’s interest and Washington’s to end the war, instead of continuing to cut checks that might prolong it.
“I don’t see any appetite for that,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, who in the past has been one of the G.O.P.’s most resolute voices proclaiming a moral imperative for continuing to support Ukraine, adding: “I’m hopeful that President Trump can help bring that to some sort of resolution.”
The shift is notable, considering that just a few months ago, a strong bipartisan majority in Congress voted to approve more than $60 billion in military assistance for Ukraine, over the opposition of Mr. Trump and his supporters. Now, there is diminishing enthusiasm among Republicans for funding weapons packages that Mr. Trump does not appear interested in sending.
“Appetite is waning,” said Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, who in the past has been a reliable vote in favor of military assistance packages for Ukraine. “Since the president ran on this, in his resolve to do his best to try and bring this to some sort of negotiated resolution, it makes sense for me to give him an opportunity to negotiate a positive resolution.”
In Congress, support for funding Ukraine’s war has slowly been eroding amid steady pressure from Mr. Trump’s allies in the party’s ultraconservative, isolationist wing. They have called for diverting Ukraine funds to other allies, such as Israel, or domestic projects like border security.
“They should not send any more money,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, one of the most vocal opponents of aiding Ukraine, said in an interview, adding: “The war will be over as soon as President Trump gets in.”
Mr. Biden’s recent request for more aid, seen as a desperate bid to lock in funds for Ukraine before Mr. Trump takes office, was arguably premature. Since Congress began directing special funding toward the war in early 2022, lawmakers have regularly waited until resources are nearly depleted to appropriate the next tranche. The administration has about $16 billion of Ukraine assistance remaining, including about $5.6 billion worth of authority to send weapons from existing stockpiles and $1.2 billion for matériel purchases over the longer term.
When Mr. Trump takes office, he is expected to inherit control over several billion dollars’ worth of unused Ukraine aid.
Some Republicans have seized on that cushion as a reason to avoid broaching any difficult conversations about Ukraine’s future reliance on U.S. assistance, in the hopes that by the time such debates become necessary, they are moot.
“We shouldn’t be running out of funding in the immediate future,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “So there’ll be time, hopefully, to work this out.”
But it is not clear that continued funding is being contemplated as part of the long-term solution. Historically, pro-Ukraine figures in Mr. Trump’s close circle of advisers, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, have already been distancing themselves from the idea of pushing for more military aid, touting Mr. Trump’s proposal to offer loans instead as a reasonable alternative.
“I think now is the time to put on the table constructive, creative solutions to end this war,” Mr. Graham said when asked whether he would continue to support sending Ukraine tens of billions of dollars, as he had previously.
And since Mr. Trump’s win, the ultraconservative wing of the party has only been emboldened in its demands to ice Ukraine out of U.S. funding altogether — meaning the political price of promoting war aid is getting steeper.
“It gets harder and harder every single time, because it can’t last forever,” Representative Dan Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, said of efforts to send more funding to Ukraine.
“The Republicans are dropping off, but keep in mind, a lot of those Republicans are not dropping off because they believe that Russia should win,” he added, concluding that the reason for the exodus was that “they’re scared of the attacks” from Mr. Trump’s supporters.
In that environment, the cadre of G.O.P. lawmakers still openly making the case for Ukraine aid is growing noticeably thinner. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s outgoing leader, and Susan Collins of Maine, who is set to become chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, are expected to continue pressing to supply Ukraine with the financial and military assistance it needs to continue the war. But it is unclear how many others will heed their exhortations to hold the line against Mr. Trump’s efforts to disengage.
In the House, lawmakers who remain unequivocally committed to helping Ukraine are finding themselves in an ever-shrinking minority at odds with Mr. Trump.
“I wish the president had moral clarity on this,” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, said in a recent interview. “So I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know where I’m standing.”
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