As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags into its fourth month, the U.S. government under Pres. Joe Biden has found a clever new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons and ammunition they need to defend their country.
It is, in essence, an American version of Germany’s circular weapons trade—the so-called Ringtausch. The United States is gifting older surplus weapons to Greece with the understanding that Greece donates to Ukraine some of its own surplus weapons.
Greek media broke the news last week. According to the newspaper Kathimerini and other media, the Biden administration offered the Greek government three 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats, two Lockheed Martin C-130H airlifters, 10 Allison T56 turboprop engines for Lockheed P-3 patrol planes plus 60 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and a consignment of transport trucks.
All this hardware is U.S. military surplus—and is available to Greece, free of charge, under a U.S. legal authority called “excess defense articles.” Federal law allows an American president to declare military systems surplus to need, assign them a value—potentially zero dollars—and give them away on the condition that the recipient transport them.
If we were selling the military hardware to Greece for a fair market price, I’d agree.
But giving it away for free is different. With this power, only the decency of whoever is currently president prevents them from sending billions of dollars of value to basically any country they want, since things like this laundering through Greece can happen. It’s not just allies, it’s anyone any ally is up for helping.
And those billions in value don’t pop out of nowhere, it’s tax dollars being given away.
Even if you’re not opposed to money being given away to any particular country, you should be a little uncomfortable with giving the Executive Branch the power to give away money like this. It could just as easily be Trump giving hardware to Russia via Turkey. There are no rules preventing it. That is a Congress decision.
First of all, it’s not giving away money, it’s giving away useless hardware.
Second, the US is getting a lot from this in a strategic sense. This is not about money, it’s about weakening one of their biggest adversaries without sending their own soldiers. If Ukraine falls, there is a lot to lose for them and others.
He’s not saying this case is wrong, he’s saying he’s not comfortable with the president having that kind of unilateral power, especially considering what Trump might do with it. I can’t say he’s wrong. Imagine Trump giving away half the military to whoever books Mars a Lago for a month.