ukraine-aid-bill-what-united-states-gains

LTC Eugene Chu I know your first reaction is to believe whatever someone tells you, but it really would help if you did some fact-checking of your own before you add your personal stamp of approval onto something.

Let's start with the NATO claim as that's something I researched recently.

"Though Trump has complained for years that the European countries are not contributing their fair share to NATO—a common gripe of President Obama’s as well—and despite Trump’s threats to let “Russia do whatever the hell they want” to NATO free-riders, Trump largely failed in his quest to get the E.U. countries to contribute meaningfully more to their own defense, and ironically, only Putin has been able to succeed where Trump failed.

The degree to which Europe is now stepping up to the plate after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and sharing the burden with the U.S. is striking. Prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, only two European countries spent more than 2% of their GDP on defense spending."

Trump largely failed in his quest to get the E.U. countries to contribute meaningfully more to their own defense. Let's see what the numbers straight from NATO say.
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf

When Trump came onboard, NATO (less the US) was paying an average of 1.44% of GDP. In 2017 and every year after that until 2021, it increased – 2017: 1.48%, 2018: 1.51%, 2019: 1.54%, and 2020: 1.72%.

So, to the stories claim that Trump failed – False (but it matches the rhetoric of the left, so they believe it). It is noteworthy that after Biden came onboard that funding started dropping again: 2021: 1.67% and 2022: 1.65% until the year after Putin invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

What about Germany and France, the ones that Trump specifically called out? Germany was at 1.2% in 2016 and did a 26% increase in spending to 1.51% when Trump left office. France was at 1.79% when Trump came into office and had meet it’s 2% agreement when he left. Again, it’s noteworthy that after Biden, both countries decreased their percentage until the year after Putin invaded Ukraine.

The other claim - “Prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, only two European countries spent more than 2% of their GDP on defense spending.” While the author wrote it in a way to fiddle with the numbers (not ‘at the end of Trump’s term” or something like that, “prior to Putin’s invasion” which was two years under Biden), it is still factually wrong.

At the beginning of 2022, the European countries that exceeded 2% of their GDP spending were Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland and the United Kingdom.

What were they at when Trump came onboard? Estonia, Greece, Poland and the United Kingdom.
What were they at when Trump left the first time? Estonia, France, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom.

So False in both accounts – trying to tie the slide under Biden to Trump and factually wrong in the claim that only two European countries spent more than 2%.

As to the 90% of spending staying within the US. I haven’t looked at it, but I’m skeptical of whatever the claims are because of the author’s dishonest/sloppy ‘facts’ regarding NATO.

"The US War Machine" never changes. The same people and contractors that made money in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq are the ones benefiting from this deal. This "Aid" doesn't change or create new jobs. It keeps the ones in existence going. One can argue this is good for the worker and the average person. However, the CEOs and majority stockholders of the usual military contractors are the ones who are truly profiting here. They continue making billions a year off military sales, arms, and munitions and are the real beneficiaries of this deal. These contractors no longer make money from wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. So, they must fill the void from somewhere, and this "Aid" fills that gap. It looks like Ukraine will do fine in feeding "the US War Machine." It's a nice pyramid scheme, considering it's all funded by you and me. All these jobs and munitions are being created and paid for with our taxpayer dollars. At what point does this pyramid scheme collapse? It would be one thing if the money came from other countries, buyers, and places. But, it is not, it comes from our government/yours and I's taxes.

I don't have a problem with supporting Ukraine but some accountability needs to be done first. The same goes for Israel. Both countries need our support. However Our southern boarder should be protected first, before the others. Biden and his democrat/comunist minions don't care about the United States security. I hope that there is a drastic change come November and Bidens policies are totally rejected forever.