WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Months after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration pulled the last American troops out of Afghanistan as part of his promise to end the country’s “forever wars“, the United States Congress approved a $777.7bn defense budget, a five percent increase from last year.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the budget legislation on Wednesday in an 89-10 vote, following the U.S. House of Representatives, which approved the legislation last week.
While the measure was welcomed by leading members of the Democratic and Republican parties as a bipartisan achievement, progressive legislators and advocacy groups are questioning the budget’s enormous price tag – and criticizing policymakers who have justified it by pointing to intensifying competition with China.
“For the last 20 years, we heard that the terrorist threat justified an ever-expanding budget for the Pentagon,” said Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, a Washington, DC-based group that advocates for a more progressive American foreign policy..
Several U.S. legislators cited countering China as a top priority in the defense budget, formally known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Congresswoman Elaine Luria, a conservative Democrat, said on Twitter on December 7 that the legislation “makes critical investments in our national defense, and takes important steps to counter the threat of a rising China”.
Ties between Beijing and Washington have soured amid numerous points of tension in recent years, including a trade war during Donald Trump’s presidency and an ongoing U.S. push against growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Chinese government has slammed U.S. relations with Taiwan, an autonomous island that China considers its own, and rebuked Washington’s attempts to deepen alliances with its neighbors, including a recent effort to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.