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Biden's Military Aid for Multiple Conflicts Undermines US Economy

© AP Photo / Ariel SchalitAn Israeli soldier takes cover as an Iron Dome air defence system launches to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel
An Israeli soldier takes cover as an Iron Dome air defence system launches to intercept a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel - Sputnik International, 1920, 13.10.2023
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Wasshington was already juggling the conflicting interests of two of its client states before Israel declared war on Gaza. Dr Linwood Tauheed, associate professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said the strain could break the US economy.
US attempts to arm its allies for multiple simultaneous conflicts with rivals Russia, China and Iran could cause domestic collapse, an economist has warned.
US President Joe Biden's administration was already deeply invested in the proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine — and building up for war with China over Taiwan — when the Palestinian Hamas movement and other groups launched their break-out from the besieged Gaza Strip into southern Israel. Washington has already sent one aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean to deter intervention by Iran, which it has blamed for the crisis.
Biden was already facing opposition from to his Ukraine adventure in Congress, where House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own party for cutting a deal with Biden for continued funding to the Kiev regime.
Economist Dr Linwood Tauheed told Sputnik that the sudden escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict was "very obviously convenient timing" for the White House.
"Now the Biden administration gets to bundle support for Ukraine with support for Israel," Tauheed said. "The politics of it is that if you put the Ukrainian money in with the Israeli money, certainly the Republicans won't pull out the Ukrainian money and just pass the Israeli money."
Republican control of the House means "we may still see Ukrainian money not come through," the commentator conceded, "but the Israeli money is certainly guaranteed to come through, and probably the Taiwanese money as well."
The White House had already telegraphed the message that its arms bonanza to the Kiev regime would dry up to the media, he noted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky listens during a meeting with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 21, 2023. - Sputnik International, 1920, 10.10.2023
Analysis
Why US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel
"The Biden administration itself has been talking about winding down the supply of money to buy arms to Ukraine," Tauheed pointed out. "Now it has a new reason to increase its budget and fund and send more money to weapons manufacturers with Israel and Taiwan. So it's just an unlimited flow of money. It just depends on who's getting it at various times."
But risk fir the White House was that Americans could start asking why hundreds of billions of their tax dollars were being sent to foreign regimes when the US was wracked by poverty, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure and natural disasters.
"When you compare the aid that's been given to Ukraine already, about $150 billion... and the continual ask for money for Ukraine, you compare that to the $700 per household that was offered to the victims in the Maui fire — $700 per household," Tauheed stressed. "That should be a huge political problem for the Biden administration to be so stingy when it comes to US citizens and so generous when it comes to citizens elsewhere. Of course, the generosity is not going to Ukrainian citizens. It's going to weapons manufacturers."
In this Aug. 18, 2021, photo, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pauses while speaking during a media briefing at the Pentagon in Washington. - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.10.2023
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The Biden administration's splurge on arms for its foreign proxies and client states — with inflation and interest rates still on the rise — was dangerously undermining the stock market, the economist warned.
Rising yields on new-issue US Treasury bonds was was driving down the value of those issued when interest rates were lower, a trend that had already caused several banks to collapse as their bond portfolios were no longer enough to cover depositor liabilities.
"The yields on bonds is going up, the price of bonds is going down further, which now exacerbates that crisis," Tauheed stressed. "The stock market is going down, the price of bonds is going down as well, while the yield of bonds is going up. This is creating a situation that pretends not very well for the financial institutions, but also for Wall Street. And, of course, that usually ends up in a problem for Main Street as the economy begins to collapse."
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