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The US House of Representatives voted with a clear majority for the defense budget, despite the threat of a veto from the president. The package would also slow the withdrawal of troops from Germany for the time being.
The US House of Representatives passed the defense budget package with a majority that could override a veto threatened by US President Donald Trump. At night (local time), 335 deputies voted in favor of the legislative package and 78 against. Therefore, the number of followers was well above the majority of two thirds.
Trump had recently asked the representatives of his Republicans in the House of Parliament to vote against the budget and renewed his threat of veto. The majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives did not respond to the call of the elected president. The Senate is due to vote on the budget this week.
Trump’s dispute with online platforms
For the law to go into effect, Trump must sign it. Among other things, the president has announced his veto over a dispute over the regulation of online platforms and a possible renaming of military bases. This veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, that is, in both houses of Congress.
Members of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Senate, which is dominated by Trump’s Republicans, agreed last Thursday on the legislative package on the defense budget for next year. The draft is over 4,500 pages long and has a budget of around $ 740 billion (€ 611 billion).
The package would slow down the withdrawal of troops from Germany
As is customary in the United States, the package also addresses numerous regulations that are not directly related to the financing of the military. Among other things, the draft stipulates that Trump’s planned mass withdrawal of US soldiers from Germany will be blocked for the time being. There it says that the Secretary of Defense of the United States must declare in a report to Congress whether such a withdrawal would be in the national interest of the United States. At the earliest 120 days later, the number of US soldiers stationed in the Federal Republic may fall below the 34,500 limit.
The draft also foresees the extension of the threats of sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline of the German-Russian Baltic Sea. The NDAA is one of a series of bills that Congress intends to pass before the end of the year. The defense budget was approved with bipartisan support for 59 consecutive years. Republican Trump lost the presidential election on November 3 to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump continues to refuse to admit defeat.
