US President Joe Biden spoke after signing the law on aid to Ukraine on April 24 – Photo: REUTERS
“It (the aid package) provides critical support to America’s partners so they can protect themselves from threats to their sovereignty,” President Joe Biden said after signing it on May 24. 4.
According to Reuters, Mr. Biden also signed a separate bill related to TikTok, which requires Bytedance – TikTok’s owner company – to divest from this video sharing application within the next 9 months to a year. .
Mr. Biden has urged US lawmakers over the past half year to approve more aid to Ukraine. However, the bill faces opposition from the Republican Party.
The deadlock ended on April 20 (US time), when the House of Representatives controlled by the Republican Party passed four bills including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other US partners in the US. Indo-Pacific.
Then, on the evening of April 23 (US time), the US Senate officially passed these bills with an overwhelming vote of 79 for – 18 against.
Sources from two US officials said that Mr. Biden’s administration is preparing for Ukraine the first military aid package taken from the above bill, worth $1 billion.
According to AFP, the Pentagon immediately announced an initial aid package worth $1 billion to Kiev from new aid sources, including anti-aircraft ammunition, dozens of HIMARS rocket launchers and hundreds of thousands of artillery shells.
The signed aid package marks a rare bipartisan victory for the current US president as he is conducting a re-election campaign for the White House boss.
The Republican Party said supporting this aid package was not a “vote for Mr. Biden” but reflected the party’s values.
“Peace through strength. That is our tradition” – Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said in a speech in the US Senate.
TikTok faces new fines in the EU
The European Commission (EC) announced on April 22 that ByteDance (China)’s short video sharing platform TikTok will have 24 hours to provide a risk assessment report of the TikTok Lite application, otherwise it will face sanctions. face punishment.
In addition, the EC also set a deadline, until May 3, for TikTok to provide additional requested information. If it fails to meet its legal obligations, TikTok could face fines of up to 1% of its gross annual earnings or global revenue and recurring fines of up to 5% of its average daily earnings or annual revenue worldwide.
