Overall support here for Ukraine stands at 48 per cent, down from 60 per cent in May. Some 40 per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents tell Pew Research pollsters that America is providing too much aid to Ukraine, up from 9 per cent who held that view last March. This decline occurred at a time when American cash and material support are only enough to keep Ukraine in the fight, but not enough to allow it to win.
President Biden promises to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, which is too long for many Republicans. Democrats, too, are increasingly nervous about the lack of an end game and, as Democratic Representative Case put it, “the possibility that we would see a higher bill next year.” Which will make it difficult for Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House, in which money bills must originate, to deliver a new substantial aid package when the existing aid runs out in July. Certainly not one devoid of accountability and other restrictions. That’s why Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with McCarthy, who is on record as opposed to new additions to the national debt and beholden to a few Trumpkins who provided the majority he needed to win the speakership and have just heard their actual leader promise to end the war within 24 hours of his re-election.
The re-emergence on the scene of Donald Trump, that old witness to the votes to be had by calling China what it is, makes McCarthy’s task more difficult. Polls show that Trump has about as many votes as all his potential rivals for the nomination combined, and the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows Trump topping Biden in 2024, 46-to-41 per cent, while a Wall Street Journal poll has Biden leading Trump only 45-to-43 per cent, within the margin of error. Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours if re-elected. Other polls differ, but you get the idea: Trump is not (yet?) a figure to be ignored.
Rather than seem like the progressive wimps they despise, many Republicans say we must exit Ukraine to meet what the Defense Department says is the greater threat to American security, communist China. The new House committee to study China dubs China “an existential threat”, of which there are as many to America as there are congressional committees aching for attention.
Recent events are grist for the mills of proponents of a tougher-on-China policy.
Americans watched a Chinese surveillance balloon make its leisurely way across the nation, zig-zagging over military sites unimpeded. No apologies from China. Experts at the Department of Energy announced that the most likely source of the Covid virus that killed over one million Americans is China’s Wuhan lab, and FBI Director Christopher Wray concurred. Denials and evidence destruction by China. Xi Jinping prepares to visit Moscow, reportedly bringing promises of lethal arms, matching NATO’s role in Ukraine. China can pay for Russia’s oil with arms, thereby prolonging the war and further depleting American military stockpiles without expending a single yuan. Not a bad buy from Xi’s point of view.
Best of all for those who fear the US is falling behind China as an economic power, fighting China is virtually costless, or so it seems. In fact, it is economically beneficial, or so it seems. Subsidize strategic industries, put tariffs on some Chinese goods, ban the import of others and the export of still others. It is a feast for some American firms, for the union workers and women they are required to hire, and, presto, the cost is nowhere to be seen: taxpayers’ bills are not itemized.
This will make life harder for China, which is eager for inbound investment. In the words of John Lee, Xi’s man in Hong Kong, “In this year and the coming year [Hong Kong] will go all out for the economy and development at full speed.” American CEOs with consumer-based companies that will not benefit directly from all that IT and infrastructure spending leaped to oblige Xi and Lee.
Most forecasters expect a recession here in America while the IMF expects the economy of an unlocked China to spurt forward at an annual rate of 5.2 per cent on the back of consumer spending, about in line what the regime’s leadership last weekend set as its target. McDonald’s and Starbucks plan to open 900 and 3,000 stores, respectively, and Ralph Lauren a few jazzy “emblematic” digitalized stores. Tyson Foods will put three of its six new plants and Hormel foods a “culinary creation hub” in the People’s Republic.
The regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced “it is willing to provide necessary assistance and support for American companies.” At a price that might seem steep to sensitive souls. Last week the regime warned Elon Musk that he is endangering his relationship with the regime merely by retweeting the DOE assessment that the Covid epidemic likely originated in the Wuhan lab.
Recipients of the half-million free tickets the Hong Kong tourist board is distributing to encourage tourists probably know their tours will not include the prisons that hold Chinese dissidents.
That is the state of play here. Significant waning of support for Ukraine, hardening of attitudes towards China, with Biden tightening the regime’s access to American technology and negotiating with congress for still tighter rules, while some leading American CEOs return to business-as-usual in a re-opened China, and half-million Americans decide whether to seem to support the regime. Looming over the scene is a rebounding Trump.