WASHINGTON — The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95-billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.

The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic-majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. US leaders from Democratic President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.

The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Mr. Biden to sign it into law.

The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish US weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his thanks, saying US lawmakers moved to keep “history on the right track.”

“The vital US aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger,” Mr. Zelensky said on X.

The Biden administration is already finalizing its next assistance package for Ukraine so it can announce the new tranche of aid soon after the bill becomes law in order to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield needs, a White House official said.

It was unclear how quickly the new military funding for Ukraine will be depleted, likely causing calls for further action by Congress.

Mr. Biden, who had urged Congress since last year to approve the additional aid to Ukraine, said in a statement: “It comes at a moment of grave urgency, with Israel facing unprecedented attacks from Iran and Ukraine under continued bombardment from Russia.”

The vote on passage of the Ukraine funding was 311-112. Significantly, 112 Republicans opposed the legislation, with only 101 in support.

“Mike Johnson is a lame duck … he’s done,” far-right Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters afterward.

She has been a leading opponent of helping Ukraine in its war against Russia and has taken steps that threaten to remove Mr. Johnson from office over this issue. Ms. Greene stopped short of doing so on Saturday, however.

During the vote, several lawmakers waved small Ukrainian flags as it became clear that element of the package was headed to passage. Mr. Johnson warned lawmakers that was a “violation of decorum.”

Meanwhile, the House’s actions during a rare Saturday session put on display some cracks in what generally is solid support for Israel within Congress. Recent months have seen progressive Democrats express anger with Israel’s government and its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Saturday’s vote, in which the Israel aid was passed 366-58, had 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans in opposition.

Passage of the long-awaited legislation was closely watched by US defense contractors, who could be in line for huge contracts to supply equipment for Ukraine and other US partners.

Mr. Johnson this week chose to ignore ouster threats by hardline members of his fractious 218-213 majority and push forward the measure that includes Ukraine funding as it struggles to fight off a two-year Russian invasion.

The unusual four-bill package also includes a measure that includes a threat to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

Some hardline Republicans voicing strong opposition to further Ukraine aid argued the United States can ill afford it given its rising $34-trillion national debt. They have repeatedly raised the threat of ousting Mr. Johnson, who became speaker in October after his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by party hardliners.

“It’s not the perfect legislation, it’s not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge of both the House, the Senate, and the White House,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. “This is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances to take care of these really important obligations.”

Representative Bob Good, chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Friday that the bills represent a “slide down into the abyss of greater fiscal crisis and America-last policies that reflect Mr. Biden and (Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer and (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries, and don’t reflect the American people.”

But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who carries huge influence in the party, on April 12 voiced support for Mr. Johnson and in a Thursday social media post said Ukraine’s survival is important for the US — Reuters

QINGDAO, China — The Chinese Navy on Sunday kicked off a biennial meeting of top foreign naval officials in the port city of Qingdao, in a show of military diplomacy that will be closely watched for signs of more engagement between China and the United States.

The four-day event with delegations from 30 countries comes during heightened tensions in the South China Sea, as US treaty ally Manila is in an increasingly fraught standoff with Beijing over the strategic waterway, which could be a potential flashpoint for US-China relations.

Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler will attend the Western Pacific Naval Symposium on behalf of the United States, according to a source familiar with the matter. Other country delegations include Australia, France, India, South Korea, Russia and Britain, state media reported.

Participants will hold closed-door talks on Monday, with seminars on topics such as addressing maritime security challenges. They will also discuss the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, a set of guidelines formulated a decade ago, meant to de-escalate tensions between militaries at sea. It has not since been updated to cover drone warfare.

A January preliminary meeting discussed the creation of a working group to prevent drone collisions at sea, state media reported.

The event overlaps with annual US-Philippines large-scale joint military drills beginning on Monday, which will occur outside Philippine territorial waters for the first time.

Tensions are particularly high around the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, where Manila has accused Beijing of “harassment,” including the use of water cannons against Philippine vessels.

The United States, Japan and the Philippines signed a cooperation agreement at a trilateral summit last week, where leaders expressed concerns over China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior” in the South China Sea, which Beijing slammed as “bloc politics”.

“The US-Philippines joint drills this time cover a bigger region, involve more troops and include exercises out of its original defensive scope such as anti-submarine and anti-missile drills,” said Cao Weidong, a military expert and former researcher at China’s PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute.

“It is not an issue when the US carries out defensive drills with the Philippines, but when these drills become offensive in nature and pose a threat to neighboring countries, we must not only be on high alert but also respond.”

However, Washington and China resumed top-level military contact on Tuesday, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaking to his Chinese counterpart for the first time in almost two years, as both countries seek to restore military ties. This month, US and Chinese military officials met in Hawaii.

China is hosting the multilateral meeting for the first time since 2014, coinciding this year with the 75^th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army Navy on Tuesday.

Beijing aims to expand its ocean-going fleet, which some analysts predict will become the world’s biggest by 2035. President Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for a “world-class” military to be established by 2027, the 100^th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army’s founding.

China has yet to launch sea trials for its next aircraft carrier, the Fujian, a key step toward expanding its maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific, as the United States and its allies step up naval operations in the region.

China is involved in maritime or territorial disputes with other attending countries, including Japan. Beijing and Tokyo have accused each other of maritime incursions after a December coast guard confrontation near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

In November, Australia accused China of injuring navy divers using sonar pulses from a Chinese warship.

During the Qingdao meeting, the navy opened several active Chinese warships docked in Qingdao for public visits, including the Guiyang and Shijiazhuang missile destroyers. On a recent guided tour, Reuters journalists saw weapons systems and rescue equipment. Children excitedly posed for photos with missile launchers.

The symposium was last held in Japan in November 2022. Japan, South Korea and the United States met on the sidelines to discuss security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including those from North Korea. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The success of Japan and South Korea at inserting language voicing concern over their currencies in a joint statement with the US last week underscores the political heat they face from stiff inflation that is being aggravated by weak exchange rates.

The matter is all the more urgent with Middle East tensions threatening to push up oil prices and accelerate cost pressures that have already exacted a domestic political toll on both governments. For the US, the statement was a small price to pay to placate a pair of allies it needs to keep on board with a more strategic goal of containing China.

In the first trilateral finance dialogue since last year’s historic three-way leaders summit at Camp David, the US, Japan and South Korea agreed on Wednesday to “consult closely” on currency markets, acknowledging “serious concerns” from Tokyo and Seoul over the slumping Japanese yen and South Korean won.

The US dollar has appreciated broadly this year on prospects for a delay in the US Federal Reserve’s shift to interest rate cuts, but the yen and won have weakened far more against the greenback than most other currencies. On the heels of the statement, the yen rebounded as markets braced for the risk of intervention, with some traders flagging the possibility of coordinated action along the lines of the 1985 “Plaza Accord.” The won stabilized as well.

“The fact such strong language was used in the statement is a huge accomplishment for Japan and South Korea, and underscores the deep ties among the three countries,” said Atsushi Takeuchi, a former Bank of Japan (BoJ) official.

“Given the recognition Washington gave to their concerns, it probably won’t get in the way if Tokyo or Seoul were to intervene in the currency market,” said Takeuchi, who was involved in Japan’s intervention in the market a decade ago.

Exchange rates, however, were just part of a long list of topics discussed during the finance dialogue, which was created under an agreement worked out at the trilateral summit outside of Washington last August.

Reflecting the summit’s focus on countering China’s growing presence in the Asia-Pacific region, the finance ministers vowed to collaborate against “economic coercion and over-capacity in key sectors” by other nations, in a thinly veiled warning to Beijing.

And yet the strong market attention the currency language drew was a political victory for Japan, where Prime Minister Fumio Kishida suffers from slumping approval ratings as the rising cost of living hits households.

While big firms are offering bumper pay hikes this year, Japan’s inflation-adjusted real wages fell for a 23^rd straight month in February as pay has yet to rise enough to compensate for the steady increase in prices.

The weak yen is particularly painful for a country like Japan, which is heavily reliant on imports of fuel and food.

EXCHANGE-RATE SENSITIVITY
Cost-push inflation — or price pressures driven by production cost increases — has also been a political headache in South Korea. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party suffered a big defeat in legislative elections this month amid accusations that the administration had failed to curb inflation.

Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong said on Wednesday that sticky domestic inflation was among the factors that complicated the central bank’s decision on when to shift away from tight monetary policy.

“The pivot timing is tricky,” Rhee said at a seminar during the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. “We’d like to see more evidence that inflation is going down as we expect.”

Under pressure to slow the yen’s fall, Japanese officials spent considerable time in Washington this week trying to make the case for why they might need to intervene in the currency market.

Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Wednesday he explained Tokyo’s readiness to take appropriate action against excessive yen moves in a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The Group of Seven (G7) finance leaders also agreed to a Japanese proposal to reaffirm their commitment that excessive volatility and disorderly moves in the currency market were undesirable.

BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda on Thursday signaled the central bank’s readiness to raise interest rates if the weak yen’s boost to inflation becomes hard to ignore.

“Both in Japan and South Korea, inflation is very elastic to exchange-rate moves,” Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda, who was involved in the drafting of the trilateral and G7 statements, told reporters on Wednesday.

“Because both countries import a lot in dollar terms, we’re more worried about exchange-rate volatility.” — Reuters