The package, which has been delayed for months due to the chaos of the US Congress, also includes money to progress the AUKUS military pact by fast-tracking submarine production in America.

But despite the legislation passing in a pre-dawn vote, the House of Representatives – which votes next and where the Republicans hold a narrow majority – declared the bill virtually dead on arrival.

House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed he would not allow a vote on the floor of his chamber without tough policies cracking down on the crisis at the US-Mexico border.

This comes despite Republicans last week killing off a bill that would have addressed the illegal immigration issue, after Trump, who is campaigning on the border crisis in a bid to return to power, made it clear he wanted the legislation blocked.

On Wednesday (AEDT), House Republicans instead voted to impeach Homeland Security boss Alejandro Mayorkas over the broken border system, making him the first cabinet secretary in almost 150 years to face such a sanction.

The impeachment vote failed last week because House Republicans miscalculated the numbers, but the move is set to be quashed in the Senate.

Warning that “history is watching”, Biden urged the house to pass the latest foreign aid funding bill, telling the nation “we can’t walk away now” from Ukraine.

“Supporting this bill is standing up to Putin. Opposing it is playing into Putin’s hands. I’ve said before that this fight extends far beyond Ukraine.”

The stoush over Ukraine funding is the latest example of Trump’s stronghold over the Republican Party, which until recently was overwhelmingly in favour of supporting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the battle against Russia’s aggression.

However, that support has waned, and Trump added to this over the weekend by putting out a social media post saying that any foreign aid provided to other countries “should be done as a loan, not just a giveaway.”

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SHOULD BE ‘STUPID’ NO LONGER!” he said.

Trump has also long been critical of NATO, and what he sees as a financial burden on the US to assist in the defence of the 30 other nations.

During his 2016 campaign, for example, he alarmed Western allies by warning that if he became president, the US might abandon its NATO treaty commitments and only come to the defence of countries that meet the alliance’s guidelines by committing 2 per cent of their gross domestic products to military spending.

His comments over the weekend were viewed as a significant escalation against the organisation and prompted widespread condemnation from global leaders.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that any attack on the alliance would be met with a “united and forceful response”.

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” he said.

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