The new composition of the US Congress will be more inclined to restrain the actions of American President Donald Trump that could harm Ukraine. This opinion was expressed in a comment to UNIAN by Oleksandr Merezhko, a people's deputy from "Servant of the People," chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation.
Answering the question of what positives the results of the US elections could bring to Ukraine, he noted that changes in the composition of Congress will occur only in January.
"Foreign policy is the prerogative of the president. But Congress decides financial and budgetary issues, the funding of the president's foreign policy initiatives. But for this, the initiative must come from the president. And now, on the contrary, there are attempts to conclude deals with Putin, for example, the diesel deal," Merezhko noted.
At the same time, he says, the main thing for us is that the new Congress will at least be more inclined to "restrain certain actions of Trump that could harm Ukraine."
"Since there will be more supporters of Ukraine from both parties - Republicans and Democrats - they will be more critical of attempts to conclude a deal with Putin at Ukraine's expense," said the committee chairman.
He explained that Congress may, in particular, not provide certain funding, as well as adopt resolutions that prohibit something.
"For example, a law was adopted against the lifting of sanctions. The diesel deal, as far as I understand, contradicts legislation previously adopted by Congress. That is, Congress can prohibit something, so to speak, to the president within the framework of its competence and powers," the deputy noted and added that this could also involve the creation of investigative commissions that could investigate, for example, that same diesel deal.
Merezhko added that for us the main thing is that there be more people in Congress who support Ukraine and understand that it is a national interest, a strategic security interest of the US, to support us.
As UNIAN reported, on November 3, midterm elections to both chambers of the US Congress were held in the United States.
James Lindsay, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), noted that the Democratic Party's victory in these elections changes the political alignment both domestically and abroad. The analyst expects that among the main items on the Democrats' agenda will be ending the war with Iran, reaffirming support for Ukraine, and restraining Trump on the issue of tariffs.
In addition, the Financial Times noted that now that Democrats control both chambers of Congress, lawmakers intend to use their budgetary and oversight powers to strengthen support for Ukraine and introduce new sanctions against the Russian economy.