The US Congress may pass a record defense budget in 2024, despite antipathy towards President Joe Biden. This was announced on February 13 to Izvestia by Nikita Danyuk, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.
Earlier, the Politico newspaper reported that the Biden administration intends to ask Congress for a record-breaking 2024 defense budget. This information was confirmed by US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Finance Michael McChord.
“Despite the fact that Congress is controlled by the Republicans, a significant part of the Republicans is associated with the military-industrial complex and, accordingly, with corporations that receive state defense orders. In the context of this, I am confident that even despite the antipathy towards Biden, a situation in which the majority of Congress will support the largest defense budget is likely to happen, ”said Danyuk.
He also noted that the defense budget primarily covers the needs of the US army and the US military-industrial complex. The expert explained that the budget may contain articles on rendering assistance to Ukraine, but they will not be of fundamental importance.
“Because, one way or another, all the military assistance provided by America is aimed at ensuring that corporations get richer, so that there is a large load on defense enterprises and capacities in the United States. And under this story, it is possible to modernize the armed forces, therefore, in my opinion, Biden has the highest chances of accepting this defense budget, ”the expert said.
Earlier, on January 6, Bloomberg reported that the Republican leader in the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, began negotiations to enlist the support of a majority of congressmen in voting for the post of speaker of the house in exchange for guarantees of cutting military spending by almost $ 75 billion.
In December 2022, the Senate of the US Congress, following the House of Representatives, approved the country’s military budget for fiscal year 2023 in the amount of $858 billion. Ukraine will be allocated $800 million in the context of Moscow’s continuation of a special operation to protect Donbass. Taiwan will receive about $12 billion.
At the same time, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the budget adopted in the United States is extremely confrontational in relation to Russia. He noted that this is fraught with serious and long-term consequences for further destabilization of the situation on the European continent.
