By Athena Papakosta

United States President Joe Biden signed the $95 billion foreign aid package, which includes military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as the provision that could lead to a ban on TikTok.

The green light for the mammoth package comes months after the US president asked Congress to authorize emergency funding for the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war and to deal with any threats from China. in the Indo-Pacific.

As far as Ukraine is concerned, the law provides for nearly $61 billion in aid.

Joe Biden explained that the military equipment will be sent “within the next few hours” while he emphasized that “we will not bow to anyone and certainly not to Vladimir Putin.”

Of the $61 billion, $23.2 billion is for the U.S. military to replenish stockpiles of military weapons and ammunition supplied by Kiev, while $13.8 billion is for providing Ukraine with the financial ability to be able to buy weapons. The $9 billion is loan aid.

“No matter what anyone says, we are getting the support we need to continue protecting lives from Russian attacks,” the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a post on the X platform, formerly Twitter.

For Israel, which – according to the law – is expected to receive $26 billion, about $4 billion of this will be allocated to the replenishment of the country’s anti-missile defense systems and also for additional weapons purchases. Israel receives a total of $3.8 billion in military aid from the United States each year.

For both Ukraine and Israel, 26 billion dollars are also planned, which will be given for the provision of humanitarian aid. The 17 billion dollars is intended for Israel and should, as the American president made clear, “aid reach the civilians of the Gaza Strip without delay” to add that “we will guarantee and immediately deliver this aid, such as food, medical supplies and drinking water’.

As far as Taiwan is concerned, a total of 8 billion dollars will be allocated, but it will also be shared among other allies of the United States in the region.

Beijing has already reacted with a representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaking of “a serious violation of the principle of one China” which, as he said, “sends the wrong message” to add that “this new aid will only heighten the tension and increase the risk of conflict on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.” For its part, Taipei welcomed the help.

At the same time, this bill also includes the provision of a nationwide ban on the popular US app TikTok if the owner company, China’s ByteDance, does not sell its assets in the United States within the next 9 months.

Under the bill, the US president will be able to extend the deadline by an additional 90 days if he wants, which means that the ban on TikTok from appstores in the United States could be implemented in exactly one year.

A spokesperson for TikTok in a written statement speaks of an “unconstitutional law” and points out that the company will go to court to challenge it.

If the video sharing app in question is banned and thus pulled from app stores in the country, users who have already ‘downloaded’ it will be able to continue using it but will no longer be able to ‘download’ new updates while, if they want to install it on a new device they will no longer have that option.

Like many other Social Media applications, TikTok collects data from its users. However, the digital platform in question has come under scrutiny in the United States for how much data it collects and who can access it.

Critics of TikTok in the country express concern that the data and information in question is available to the Chinese government, a fact which ByteDance categorically denies.