“It will make America safer. It will make the world safer,” Biden said at the White House shortly after signing the legislation.
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United States President Joe Biden signed the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Of this amount, 61 billion are allocated specifically to Kiev.
Biden says the legislation “will make the world safer” after months of deadlock in Congress that threatened Washington’s support for Ukraine.
“It’s going to make America safer. It’s going to make the world safer,” Biden said at the White House, shortly after signing the legislation.
“It should have been easier and I should have arrived sooner. But in the end, we did what America always does. We rose to the occasion, we came together and we managed.”, said the North American leader.
Joe Biden promised to “act quickly” and made clear that the United States will begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine within hours.
According to North American officials, some of the weapons will be delivered very quickly to the battlefront – within a few days – but others may take longer to arrive.
The aid package for Ukraine includes air defense munitions and large quantities of artillery ammunition that are in high demand by Ukrainian forces, as well as armored vehicles and other weapons.
Biden stressed that passing the legislation sends a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He failed again. We do not bow before anyone, anyone, least of all before Vladimir Putin,” he said.
The legislation also includes US$26 billion for Israel and humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and US$8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region, which could thus counter China’s military power.
TikTok could be banned in the United States
In an effort to attract support from Republicans, the security legislation approved by Biden includes a provision that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the United States.
TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, has nine months to sell the social network or it will be banned on North American soil. Biden could grant a one-time 90-day extension, increasing the sale deadline to one year, if he finds there is a path to the divestiture and “significant progress” toward executing it.
The Biden administration and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have called TikTok a growing national security concern.
On this occasion, the company that owns TikTok said it will take legal action against what it called an “unconstitutional” effort by Congress.
“We believe that the facts and the law are clearly on our side and that we will ultimately prevail,” the company said in a statement.
“The fact is that we have invested billions of dollars to keep US data safe and our platform free from external influence and manipulation. This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.”
Our journalists are following the news and will be updated whenever necessary.
