Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this week with a fresh threat regarding Beijing’s support for Russia, as the House greenlit a new $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. 

A senior State Department official previewed Blinken’s upcoming April 24-26 trip to China in call with reporters on Friday, describing how he will meet with senior PRC officials in both Shanghai and Beijing.

‘I don’t have anything specific to announce to you today, but I’ll just underscore that as you’ve seen us demonstrate over the past many weeks and months, we’re committed to taking the steps necessary to defend our national interests, and we’re prepared to take steps when we believe necessary against firms that are taking steps in contravention to our interests and in ways that – as we’ve indicated here – severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe,’ the senior State Department official said. ‘And I think we’ve demonstrated our willingness to do so regarding firms from a number of countries, not just China. And at any rate, again, I think this will be a key issue of discussion while we’re in Beijing.’

With his G7 foreign ministerial counterparts, Blinken on Friday discussed concern ‘about the transfers to Russia from businesses in the PRC of a range of dual-use materials and weapons components that Russia is using to advance its military production,’ the official said. ‘The concern there is that through Chinese support, Russia has largely reconstituted its defense industrial base, which has an impact not just on the battlefield in Ukraine but poses a larger threat, we believe, to broader European security.

Blinken and other U.S. diplomats will express those concerns to China and ‘our intent to have China curtail that support,’ which is starting to pose ‘a threat to European security,’ the official said. 

The State Department could not immediately confirm whether Blinken will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The senior State Department official did confirm to reporters that Blinken is expected to meet with his counterpart, Director and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 

In Shanghai and Beijing, the secretary will focus ‘on implementing the leaders’ commitments in San Francisco to advance cooperation on issues such as counternarcotics, bolster mil-mil communication, and establish talks on artificial intelligence risks and safety,’ the senior State Department official said. 

The State Department outlined three goals for Blinken’s trip: ‘making progress on key issues,’ ‘clearly and directly communicating concerns on bilateral, regional, and global issues’ and third, ‘responsibly managing competition’ so ‘that it does not result in miscalculation or conflict.’

Blinken is expected to ‘raise clearly and candidly our concerns on issues ranging from human rights, unfair economic and trade practices, to the global economic consequences of PRC industrial over-capacity.’ 

The official said the secretary ‘will also reiterate our deep concerns regarding the PRC’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base,’ ‘discuss the crisis in the Middle East’ and ‘challenges in the Indo-Pacific, including PRC provocations in the South China Sea, as well as the DPRK’s threatening rhetoric and reckless actions.’ 

Blinken will ‘discuss the crisis in Burma’ and ‘will also reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,’ the official told reporters.

At the G7 summit last week, Blinken outlined the type of aid China is sending to Russia.  

‘When it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,’ Blinken told reporters in Capri, Italy. ‘We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade. Now, if China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.’ 

Iran’s top foreign affairs official dismissed weapons launched against the country by neighboring Israel as ‘toys’ and said there was no plan to retaliate.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian downplayed the Israeli strike during an interview on Friday, hours after the impact.

‘What happened last night wasn’t a strike,’ Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told NBC News. ‘They were more like toys that our children play with — not drones.’

‘As long as there is no new adventurism by Israel against our interests, then we are not going to have any new reactions,’ he added.

Amir-Abdollahian also stated that the Iranian regime is not completely convinced the strike came from Israel, though he failed to offer alternative theories.

‘If Israel takes a decisive action against my country and this is proven to us, our response will be immediate and to the maximum and will cause them to regret it,’ the foreign minister said.

Israel carried out limited strikes in Iran early Friday in retaliation for Tehran firing a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel last Saturday. A well-placed military source told Fox News that the strike was ‘limited.’

There have been no reports of large-scale damage or casualties.

Explosions were reported in the Isfahan province, which is where Natanz, one of Iran’s nuclear facilities, is located. 

Following the attack, Iranian state media stated that the nation’s atomic sites were ‘fully safe’ and had not been struck by the missiles.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations affiliate watchdog organization, later confirmed ‘there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.’

The House of Representatives has approved sending $60 billion to Ukraine for its defense against Russia’s invasion, an issue that has roiled Speaker Mike Johnson’s already perilously slim majority.

The aid package passed 311 to 112, with more Democrats voted in favor than Republicans – and just 101 Republicans voted for the bill while 112 voted nay.

In a dramatic moment toward the end of the vote, Democrats began passing around Ukrainian flags — in violation of House protocol, according to the lawmaker presiding over the vote, Rep. Marc Molinaro. The left side of the aisle exploded in cheers when the timer on the vote reached zero, earning admonishment from Molinaro, who told them the flag-waving was in violation of the rules and called it ‘inappropriate,’ to which Democrats jeered.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., took to the microphones to chide, ‘Put those d–n flags away,’ earning more verbal backlash from Democrats before the chamber was called to order for the next vote.

House lawmakers are in session on a rare Saturday working to pass Johnson’s $95 billion foreign aid plan, which also includes aid bills for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, as well as a bill with other national security measures. In a decisive victory for the Louisiana Republican, all four bills passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The close margins within the GOP alone show what a divisive topic Ukraine funding has become for the right.

A growing number of fiscal conservatives have been skeptical about the U.S.’s continued financial involvement with Ukraine, while others have raised questions about corruption within Kyiv’s government. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s proposal to strip all funding related to Ukraine from the Ukraine funding bill predictably failed Saturday in a 71 to 351 vote.

More traditional Republicans and national security hawks warn that Ukraine’s victory is critical to preventing a wider conflict between NATO and Russia, warning that its President Vladimir Putin is rapidly forming a second ‘axis of evil’ with Iran and China.

Johnson, who like his conservative colleagues was skeptical of Ukraine aid before becoming speaker, gave a sober warning earlier this week. ‘I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten that I believe [Chinese President Xi Jinpimg] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. And I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies,’ he told reporters. ‘To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,’ he said.

But his support for foreign aid, particularly Ukraine, is also threatening to cut short his tenure as House speaker. Greene filed a resolution for a House-wide vote to oust Johnson, known as a motion to vacate, last month in protest of his work with Democrats on government spending and foreign aid.

Two more House Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., formally backed her resolution this week.

‘[R]ather than spending the resources to secure our southern border and combating the invasion of 11 million illegals and despite repeated promises there would be no additional money going to Ukraine without first securing our border, the United States House of Representatives, under the direction of the Speaker, is on the verge of sending another $61 billion to further draw America into an endless and purposeless war in Ukraine,’ Gosar said in a statement on Friday. ‘I have added my name in support of the motion to vacate the Speaker. Our border cannot be an afterthought.’

Greene told reporters on Saturday after the vote, ‘This is the third betrayal of Mike Johnson,’ citing his earlier government funding agreement and renewal of a key government surveillance tool.

She then added, ‘And then he did this bulls–t in here on the House floor, a foreign war package that does nothing for America. It’s unbelievable. I’m thankful that America gets to see who this man is.’

Meanwhile, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., conceded that Johnson could ‘maybe’ lose his job over pushing his foreign aid package over the line but praised the speaker for doing ‘the right thing’ despite the risk.

‘We…had intelligence that if we didn’t get this done soon, Ukraine was in a bad situation,’ Bacon said.

House leaders do not have to put Greene’s resolution up for a vote unless she files it as ‘privileged,’ at which point it’s required that lawmakers act on it within two legislative days. Greene did not indicate when she might do that.

Several Democrats, however, have indicated that they were open to helping save Johnson’s job if he put the Ukraine aid bill on the House floor.

The bill with roughly $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific overwhelmingly passed 385 to 34 earlier on Saturday.

The House of Representatives showed overwhelming bipartisan support for a $26 billion foreign aid bill providing funding for Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The bill predictably polarized the most right and left-wing members of Congress; the former are furious over the $9 billion in aid aimed at the State Department for civilians in Gaza, while the latter are opposed to more lethal aid to Israel. 

The measure passed 366 to 58, and the chamber broke into applause after the bill passed.

In a win for the House GOP’s razor-thin majority, the bill also prohibits funding from going toward the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a Palestinian refugee agency alleged to have ties to Hamas.

The bill’s passage is a resounding victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as he navigates an exceptionally fractured political environment. It’s part of a wider set of bills, totaling roughly $95 billion in foreign aid, that Johnson put on the House floor Saturday. The slate of bills also included aid for Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific as well as a fourth bill containing various national security priorities.

The vote comes as tensions in the Middle East escalate dramatically, particularly between Israel and Iran as Israel fights a war on the Palestinian terror group Hamas. 

Israel carried out limited strikes against Iran on Friday in retaliation for a barrage of airstrikes Tehran fired on Israel, the first such direct attack from the Islamic fundamentalist government. No large-scale damage or casualties were reported in either incident.

The issue of Israel has also been a divisive one for Democrats, as a growing faction of left-wing lawmakers criticize Israel’s invasion in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. 

Republicans, for the most part, have been united in backing Israel and its conservative government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Johnson has put two previous Israel funding bills on the House floor, one that offset the funding with cuts to the IRS, and one which provided the funding without any strings attached. Neither was taken up by the Senate.

This time, however, fiscal conservatives decried the lack of offsets and funding for Gaza.

‘I will always stand with our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel. But I rise today to express my serious concerns with a very flawed supplemental. In November, I supported the first security supplemental for Israel, which was financially paid for and would have provided weapons and equipment for Israel’s fight against Hamas. The cost was offset by rescinding Democrats unprecedented expansion of the IRS. Today, we are considering a vastly different bill, one that is all borrowing another 26 billion of debt with no rescission,’ House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said during debate on the bill.

‘The legislation also contains 400 million for FEMA, which has nothing to do with supporting Israel, and over $9 billion for humanitarian aid in…Gaza and the West Bank.’

Clyde cited a Heritage Foundation report that said Hamas and other terror groups controlled the flow of all international humanitarian aid operating in Gaza.

‘It is therefore highly likely U.S. taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid to Gaza, including some of the aid in this bill, will again be diverted to support further Hamas attacks against Israel,’ he said.

The Biden administration could announce sanctions against an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) battalion for alleged human rights violations in the West Bank before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas-led terrorists, according to reports.

Axios reported that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken could announce the sanctions against IDF battalion ‘Netzah Yehuda’ within days, marking the first time the U.S. will have placed sanctions on military units operated by Israel.

If sanctions are imposed, the battalion and its members would no longer receive any type of training or assistance from the U.S. military, sources reportedly told the publication.

The U.S. is prohibited under the Leahy Law, from providing any sort of foreign aid or defense department training to countries responsible for alleged human rights violations based on credible information.

Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. State Department and White House but did not immediately hear back.

While speaking to reporters on Friday, Blinken was asked about Israel’s violations of human rights in the West Bank and recommendations made by his department to cut military aid to certain Israeli units.

Blinken started by saying the Leahy Law was important and applied across the board.

‘When we’re doing these investigations, these inquiries, it’s something that takes time, that has to be done very carefully both in collecting the facts and analyzing them – and that’s exactly what we’ve done,’ he said. ‘And I think it’s fair to say that you’ll see results very soon. I’ve made determinations; you can expect to see them in the days ahead.’

On Friday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on an ally of Israel’s national security minister and two entities that raised money for Israeli men who allegedly committed settler violence. The new sanctions came in addition to others placed on five settlers and two unauthorized outposts earlier this year. The increased sanctions also show growing frustration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the U.S.

Friday’s sanctions will reportedly freeze U.S. assets held by those targeted while also barring Americans from dealing with them.

Right-wing members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition that is pushing to expand Jewish settlements along with the annexation of the West Bank are reportedly upset with the Biden administration for making moves against the Israeli settlers.

Also adding fuel to the fire is the tension between Israel and Washington caused by the latter urging Israel to restrain themselves from attacking Iran.

One of the individuals sanctioned by the U.S. was Ben-Zion Gopstein, the founder and leader of the right-wing group Lehava. The group does not support Jewish assimilation with non-Jews and has about 5,000 members.

‘Under Gopstein’s leadership, Lehava and its members have been involved in acts or threats of violence against Palestinians, often targeting sensitive or volatile areas,’ State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

Miller warned that additional steps would be taken if Israel does not act to prevent extremist attacks as violence continues to escalate in the West Bank.

The European Union also agreed to impose sanctions against Lehava and other groups.

But the U.S. is not just targeting Israel. In fact, last week, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced sanctions would be placed against Iran after its regime attacked Israel last Saturday.

The sanctions were announced as Republicans criticized the Biden administration for not being tough enough on Iran, pointing to a waiver extended by the White House in November 2023 that released $10 billion of previously escrowed funds to Iran.

Sullivan said that the actions the U.S. is taking will ‘continue a steady drumbeat of pressure to contain and degrade Iran’s military capacity and effectiveness and confront the full range of its problematic behaviors.’

‘Over the last three years, in addition to missile and drone-related sanctions, the United States has sanctioned over 600 individuals and entities connected to terrorism, terrorist financing and other forms of illicit trade, horrific human rights abuses, and support for proxy terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Kataib Hezbollah,’ the statement added.

‘The pressure will continue. We will not hesitate to continue to take action, in coordination with allies and partners around the world, and with Congress, to hold the Iranian government accountable for its malicious and destabilizing actions.’

Fox News Digital’s Andrea Vacchiano and Reuters contributed to this report.