Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke during a news conference at the Treasury Department in Washington, Thursday, April 21, 2022. Yellen spoke on the $500 million economic aid package provided to Ukraine from the U.S. and acknowledged that it’s only a fraction of what the war-ravaged country will need and said the administration will seek more money from Congress. Yellen has said that Ukraine will get the aid needed, however Ukrainian officials estimate that could total $8 billion this month alone. That is no small sum of money. Ukrainian officials came to Washington this week seeking a $50 billion aid package from international allies as it braces for a massive financing shortfall over the coming months. Thinking of ways to fund the request, Yellen was noncommittal on whether the U.S. could use some of the hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign reserves from the Russian central bank, which the Biden administration and its allies have frozen. The size of the latest U.S. contribution and Yellen’s tentative comments on finding further economic aid underscore the challenges the administration faces in trying to help the Ukrainians survive the Russian onslaught, even as much of the world condemns Moscow’s actions.
The US is over $4 million dollars in debt. It's great how we are helping other countries as Ukraine needs it, but how are we finding the money for this? We should be focused on paying off our debts. $50 billion is not a small amount of money and we have only given Ukraine $8 billion which is not small either.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how, or if Russia will be punished for it's actions in Ukraine. The US, as well as other NATO nations have sent much financial aid to Ukraine over this unprompted invasion.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is ethical to help Ukraine and support them both economically and financially during this time of turmoil, it is important to note that the United States just emerged from a recession and that increasing the amount of money spent/given by the government could further increase some of the issues that have presented themselves in our economy in the wake of the pandemic, such as rising interest rates and inflation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that we should be helping Ukraine, but $50 billion is a real lump sum.I have not followed the war as much recently and I am curious to see what other countries are putting up large amounts of money towards the war.
ReplyDeleteI read the article that president Biden ask congress for extra 23 USD billion aid for Ukraine, but what about others. Not many countries are providing help to Ukraine when its needed. I am fascinated my Ukrainian soldiers fighting again huge Russia
ReplyDeleteNot to make it sound like $50 billion isn't a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a lot of money. The COVID relief packages amounted to trillions of dollars and the infrastructure bill was almost another trillion. While there will definitely be an impact from increased funding, it's likely going to be much smaller than other, larger funding packages.
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