Senator Paul: US Funding of Ukraine Enriches China at Taxpayers’ Expense

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., expressed his concerns on Sunday about the implications of sending free aid to Ukraine, stating that it essentially means funding Ukraine and benefiting China at the expense of American taxpayers.

“My primary reason for opposing sending money to Ukraine is that we don’t have any money; the money has to be borrowed,” Paul explained during an interview with “The Cats Roundtable,” as reported by The Hill. “So basically, you know, we owe China $1 trillion, they bought $1 trillion worth of our debt. We have to basically borrow money from China in order to send it to Ukraine.”

President Joe Biden has criticized fiscal conservatives like Paul for voting against Ukraine aid, but Paul highlighted that Ukraine could potentially negotiate with Russia by using NATO ambitions as leverage, rather than simply assuming that Ukraine will join NATO automatically.

“Well, that’s the one thing that, actually, Ukraine has that they could negotiate,” Paul explained to host John Catsimatidis. “If they were willing to negotiate that they would be a neutral country and not allied with the Russians and not allied with the West but be open to trade with both.”

“I think what they could do is that could be negotiated for withdrawal of troops. There’s no guarantee the Russians would withdraw troops, but it’d be worth the offer.”