WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The bulk of the U.S. aid to Ukraine to support its fight with Russia actually "is going right back into the U.S. economy to make those weapons," U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said recently, triggering uproar both within and outside the United States.
The money returning to the United States has created "good-paying jobs in some 40 states across the United States," Nuland said during an interview with U.S. media.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reinforced Nuland's saying in a recent report, revealing that in the two years of the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. defense industry "has experienced a boom in orders for weapons and munitions," and industrial production in the defense and space sector has increased 17.5 percent.
Business is coming from European allies trying to build their military capabilities as well as from the Pentagon, which is both buying new equipment from defense manufacturers and replenishing military stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, said the WSJ report titled "How war in Europe boosts the U.S. economy."
Biden administration officials say that of the 60.7 billion U.S. dollars earmarked for Ukraine in a 95-billion-dollar supplemental defense bill, 64 percent will actually flow back to the U.S. defense industrial base, according to the report.
British defense contractor BAE Systems plans to create 500 jobs by expanding facilities in Minnesota, while General Dynamics will create around 120 positions at a new plant in Texas, the report said, citing Cynthia Cook, a defense industry expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Biden administration officials have said "funding allocated for Ukraine is rebuilding America's defense industrial base, jump-starting and expanding production lines for weapons and ammunition, and supporting jobs in 40 states," said the report.
Last November, the Biden administration also circulated to members of Congress a map of "states benefiting from military aid to Ukraine," detailing for the first time how the roughly 27 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine translates into military industry investments in dozens of states, U.S. media reports also said.
The distribution map is mainly divided into two parts: "Economic benefits brought by military aid to Ukraine" and "direct investment by the government in military bases."
According to the distribution map, when the two parts are combined, Pennsylvania gains the most, with 2.36 billion dollars; Texas won a 1.45-billion-dollar arms order; Arizona received 2.196 billion dollars in arms orders, and defense companies in at least 25 other states received a combined 18 billion dollars.
Nuland's remarks and related reports have drawn widespread questioning and criticism.
Her remarks show "you just how wrong the whole approach is ... that's just a transfer from the broader economy, from the taxpayers to a specific industry. It is good for the people in that industry. That doesn't mean it's good for the economy," said Robby Soave, co-host of The Hill's web news commentary series program.
"It's difficult to understand what political purpose that kind of rhetoric serves," said political commentator Briahna Joy Gray, talking about her impression of hearing the U.S. representatives, members of Congress and the State Department saying things like "we should not only be okay with this war, because money is trickling down to domestic weapons manufacturers, but that we should also be happy with this war, because it's an efficient way to weaken (Russian President Vladimir) Putin without American bodies being on the line."
"It really is an out loud way of saying how little one cares about the value of the Ukrainian lives that are very much on the line, that number at least 31,000," she said.
Gray also urged the U.S. policymakers to value the American taxpayers' contribution, saying: "No one likes to see money just set on fire or used for weapons that blow things up that then have to be rebuilt."
"It's the most destructive use of funding. It's for destruction ... It's totally wrong-headed," she stressed. ■
