Former President Donald Trump should be credited for language in the foreign aid bill that was expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday night that requires assistance to Ukraine be part of a loan, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Newsmax.
The loans included in the bill offer $7.849 billion in economic assistance to Ukraine and $1.575 billion in assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia. Mullin told “The Record With Greta Van Susteren” that a Feb. 10 post on Truth Social set the stage for lawmakers to require the assistance to be made into a loan.
“Keep in mind President Donald Trump did that,” Mullins said. “President Donald Trump sent out a post on Truth Social and he said we should do it in a loan that’s generous and only get paid back if they strike rich or they turn their back on the United States, with no interest or no payment terms.
“As soon as he sent that out, I called President Trump and said, are you serious about this? We went to work working with President Trump.”
Mullin also credited Trump with the House on Saturday passing legislation that allows the U.S. to confiscate billions of dollars in Russian assets sitting in U.S. banks and use them to help rebuild Ukraine.
“We spent weeks, [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.], myself, and a few other House members all worked with President Trump to get this language in there, and I don’t think President Trump is getting enough credit for what he did,” Mullin said.
Mullin said congressional lawmakers have not done a good enough job explaining to Americans the importance of passing the aid package to Ukraine.
“We call it the national security bill and those that oppose it call it the Ukrainian bill, but 75% of the bill stays inside the United States,” Mullin said. “That’s what a lot of people don’t realize, that this goes to our defense industry. This goes to replenishing our munitions.”
Mullin also said the U.S. has an obligation because of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where Ukraine, which had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, Kazakhstan, and Belarus would give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from the U.S., United Kingdom, and Russia.
“Ukrainians said we would rather have the power of the United States behind us than nuclear weapons,” Mullin said. “Now does anybody think for a second Russia would be invading Ukraine today if Ukraine still had that nuclear arsenal?
“If you actually take the time to inform the American people why this is important to us. Why is Russia invading Ukraine? … Because the second-largest natural gas deposit in all of Europe is stationed in Ukraine. Why are they doing it? Because the rare earth minerals that Ukraine has is arguably the largest deposit in the world, worth $1.2 [trillion] to $3 trillion. The only people that have more rare earth minerals than that is China.”
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