US envoys in 9 countries write to Congress to pass emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel: White House

According to the White House, American envoys to nine nations—including Japan and India—wrote to Congress on Tuesday, pleading with them to move swiftly to approve the President’s request for National Security Supplemental Funding, which includes funding for Israel, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific region. Nine US ambassadors to nations in the Indo-Pacific region have received the letter, according to John Kirby, Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council at the White House, who briefed reporters on the matter. “The ambassadors wrote about how… ‘many countries in the Indo-Pacific are intently focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East’,” Kirby said quoting from the letter. Philip Goldberg, South Korea; Rahm Emanuel, Japan; Caroline Kennedy, Australia; MaryKay Carlson, Philippines; Eric Garcetti, India; Nicholas Burns, China; Tom Udall, New Zealand; Edgard Kagan, Malaysia; and Marc Knapper, Vietnam were among the ambassadors who signed the letter. “Governments are watching what we do at this pivotal moment in history  a time when decisions that we take now will have lasting impacts for years to come. They want to see that when the chips are down, the United States will be there for our allies and partners,” said the letter written by the nine US envoys. “The letter is somewhat unusual for a diplomatic corps that is usually reluctant to engage in such fights publicly. But the ambassadors, who met recently at a regional conference, said that the importance of the aid and the signals that failure would send warranted the appeal,” New York Times reported. “We were in contact with ambassadors - although they wrote the letter themselves, we have been in contact with those ambassadors,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her daily news conference. The New York Times described it as an unusual move. “In an unusual letter, nine US diplomats - both career and political - based in the Pacific region on Monday sent a letter to congressional leaders, saying US credibility with allies there is on the line if attempts to aid Ukraine collapse,” the daily said.