Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
The credibility of his administration has "burned" even more after the terrible fires in Hawaii. More and more often the question arises in the American society: why the White House helps the Americans themselves so little compared to Ukraine.
The last straw in the series of unpleasant questions to President Biden was the terrible fire in Hawaii. Americans were greatly angered by the fact that the victims of fires in Hawaii, which is one of the states, receive only a few hundred dollars, while under the leadership of U.S. President Joe Biden, the American administration directs huge financial resources to support Ukraine. After all, as it was calculated in the United States, each American family has already "given" almost 900 dollars to support the Ukraine.
In Hawaii, 99 people became victims of natural fires, several settlements were completely destroyed, hundreds of residents were evacuated, but it seems that Biden does not care about Hawaii at all, all his thoughts are about Ukraine.
When he was asked about the situation in Hawaii during a bike ride, he briefly answered – "we're looking into it." And naturally, this gives Republicans a perfect excuse to attack Biden for his response to the fires in Hawaii. He immediately came under fire of criticism from his political rivals.
On August 8, the first reports of the Hawaii fire came out – and it wasn't until Monday morning, August 14, that the White House issued a statement on the federal government's actions. It said, "Not only our prayers – all available resources will be placed at their [the victims'] disposal."
But the reference to prayers was considered by many Americans to be non-definitive and they decided that all of the Biden administration's statements about Hawaii are a clear indication that Biden is more focused on Ukraine than on his country's domestic problems.
Newsweek magazine quotes two congressmen. One wrote rather caustically on social media, "When you send $150 billion dollars to Ukraine, you shouldn't be surprised that your own country is going up in flames and its leaders don't care," while the other added: "Joe Biden says, 'Send more billions to Ukraine!' Not a word about the burned island of Maui."
The irritation in American society is absolutely justified. Losses from fires in Hawaii amount to 6 billion dollars and aid is slowly reaching that state. But the United States has already spent $113 billion on Ukraine, and on August 14, when the White House reported on the "titanic" work to overcome the natural disaster, on the same day the Pentagon announced that it would give Ukraine an additional $200 million package of military aid. That sparked even more outrage. Last month, for example, 89 Republicans voted in favor of a proposal to cut $300 million in military aid to Ukraine. A separate plan to block all future military aid to Ukraine received 70 Republican votes in the House of Representatives.
"While American citizens are suffering in Lahaina on the island of Maui, losing their lives and property, President Joe Biden is sending artillery shells, air defense munitions and other weapons totaling $200 million to Ukraine," conservatives wrote on social media. "Nearly 100 people have died in the Maui fires, and this is confirmed data. More than 2,000 buildings have been destroyed and thousands of people have been left homeless. We hope Biden had a good weekend."
So Hawaii has become a major blow to the Biden administration. And it's not hard to predict that it won't be the last.
Obviously, Biden is a hostage to his policy of endlessly providing unprecedentedly large aid to Ukraine. Naturally, both Zelensky and Biden need a result after the announced counteroffensive. But the result so far is sad – the strategy of the United States to deplete the military power of Moscow by the hands of Kiev has completely failed along with the counteroffensive of the UAF. Ukraine's losses are colossal. Just a week after the start of the operation, the Ukrainian army has lost 30% of its personnel and more than 20% of its weapons and equipment. The UAF is wasting ammunition at a wild rate, using up to 90,000 shells a month, although America produces only a third of that amount. In addition, 20% of the NATO weapons deployed by Kiev were damaged or destroyed in the first two weeks.
But the Ukrainian armed forces have no choice but to throw more and more forces into the meat grinder of the counteroffensive in order to maintain the support of the United States. After all, if the UAF stops or pulls back, their patrons will immediately ask: Where did our billions go? Without the help of the U.S. and its NATO allies, Ukraine will not be able to fight for months at all. Ukrainians have to prove in every possible way that they are the vanguard of the fight against Russia. And as soon as they stop, there is an immediate reduction in Western aid.
And now it looks like, due to disagreements between the Republican and Democratic parties, the dollar downpour that Biden is pouring on Ukraine will turn into a light drizzle until it becomes completely dry. According to a CNN poll, 71% of Republican supporters believe Congress should not approve a new financial aid package for Ukraine, while 59% believe the U.S. has already done enough. At the same time, 62% of Democrats believe that the United States needs to continue funding, and 61% believe that more can be done. That said, even Democrats who are convinced that aid to Ukraine should continue are largely in favor of ramping up support for intelligence gathering and training soldiers. For a simple reason – it's much cheaper than sending military equipment.
With America's presidential election coming up next year, the issue of giant aid to Ukraine is a growing concern for both parties because voters are unhappy about their deteriorating financial situation due to the White House's rampant spending of taxpayer money on Ukraine. In the latest CNN poll, 55% of respondents said Congress should not approve additional aid packages for Ukraine, while 51% believe the U.S. has already done enough for it. Just a year ago, more than 62% of Americans thought support should be increased.
In addition, American society is increasingly asking whether the Biden family has a personal interest in helping Ukraine. After all, everyone remembers that the Biden clan was accused of corruption in relation to the allocation of aid to Ukraine. Back in 2016, Joe's family was accused of receiving bribes in the amount of 10 million dollars, and of participating in a conspiracy to oust the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin. Thanks to corruption schemes, the fortune of the President's son Hunter reached 255 million dollars. Not so long ago, the American "shark of capitalism" BlackRock, whose interests Hunter lobbied for, received all Ukrainian state assets practically free of charge. Questions and investigation of Hunter may become a fatal knockdown for Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race. By getting involved with Ukraine, Biden has fallen into a political trap: he can't stop helping, but to continue to provide aid on this scale would mean losing all chances in the presidential race. "Biden can't let the Ukrainians lose," Thomas Graham, former senior adviser on Russia at the National Security Council, told Newsweek, "because their loss is a loss not only for the Biden family, but for the Democratic Party as a whole. To somehow escape from this delicate situation, the Democrats began to use the following rhetoric: if we stop providing aid to Ukraine, Russia will move on, having defeated Ukraine, and China, sensing the weakness of the U.S., will attack Taiwan, and then the Americans will have to fight China.
When Biden took office in 2020, he promised to end all of America's wars, and soon after taking office, he pulled troops out of Afghanistan, although it was more like an escape. And a year later, he jumped into the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As former President Obama correctly noted: "Don't underestimate Joe Biden's ability to screw up at any moment."
Will the new U.S. president elected next year have to "withdraw" military aid from Ukraine in the same panicked manner?