Congress Made a Quid Pro Quo and Capped Ukraine Aid in the Proposed FY24 Foreign Ops Appropriations Bill

To Sen. Chris Coons, Chairman of US Senate Appropriations SFOPs Subcommittee CC: Sen. Marco Rubio, member of US Senate Appropriations SFOPs Subcommittee CC: Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, Chair of the US House Appropriations SFOPs Subcommittee: I am writing with regard to the FY 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bill. A poignant detail in the bill, is that during the height of the invasion in Ukraine, out of all of the foreign countries being granted aid in the appropriations bill, only aid to Ukraine will receive a stringent "cost-matching" cap. The restrictive "cost-matching" framework in the policy would cap funding for US non-defense aid to Ukraine at 50% from that of the total amount of non-defense funds contributed to Ukraine from all sources. To the naked eye, "cost matching" seems a method to encourage a greater investment from others. But in the case of the bill, it's the opposite. The "cost matching" in th...