House speaker Mike Johnson is considering a loan program for Ukraine aid

Among the proposals being floated is treating some of the nonmilitary aid as a type of loan, said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, who is involved in the discussions, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Economic aid to support the general function of Ukraine’s government and its long-term rebuilding efforts would be subject to a loan under this plan.

Offering up loans as part of the package is designed to help ease the concerns of House conservatives who have criticized billions in U.S. aid for Ukraine and said they will not support sending further U.S. taxpayer dollars without a long-term plan to win the war.

Graham endorsed the loan idea in an interview last week, crediting former President Donald Trump with coming up with it. Trump posted on his Truth Social site on Feb. 10 that Congress should not provide aid money to any country “unless it is done as a loan.”

Graham, who once espoused unconditional support for Ukraine, helped to kill a Ukraine aid and border package in the Senate earlier this year that he helped to negotiate, saying that Trump opposed it and preferred a loan structure.

President Biden’s aid request has languished for as long as Johnson has been speaker. It’s now been a month since the Senate voted 70 to 29, for the $95-billion foreign aid package — $60 billion for Ukraine and the rest for Israel, Taiwan and Palestinians in Gaza.

“Mr. Johnson’s failure to make a positive decision will cost thousands of lives” and affect “the fate of millions of people,” NATO ally Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.