From what I understand, the US doesn’t provide a proportionally large share of foreign aid. “…the EU provides almost twice as much foreign aid as the United States”
Would it be in the best interest of the United States to provide more international aid?
Would it not affect our self-interest, but still be the morally correct thing to do?
Or should we provide less, and use the funds for other things (like fewer taxes or more social programs)?
Depends. There is government foreign aid, and there is money given voluntarily by citizens to foreign causes.
It’s difficult to compare the US to other nations because we have a very different philosophy on the role of government here. To often, international orgs declare us to be lower ranking in certain areas simply because there is less public spending on it. Foreign aid is one example.
There are fifteen member countries in the EU.
That “twice as much” aid figure includes aid given amongst member countries. It seems rather disingenuous to speak of the EU giving “twice as much” foreign aid as the US does when the aid is going in part to EU member countries. Let’s add into our figure how much federal aid Alabama and Minnesota get, then, shall we?
The EU’s 15 member countries are, by the way, composed in aggregate of 380.1 billion people - more than the US has.
Million. Not billion.
Look how much we’ve been spending aiding the Iraqis.
Taking over and running Afghanistan.
Patrolling the DMZ.
Maintaining the Cuban trade embargo, and interdicting drug trafficking.
Keeping the world safe through our nuclear capability.
No one can touch our level of international aid.
Oh.
Did you mean things like food, medicine, and debt forgiveness?
Nevermind.
I’m not talking about money voluntarily given by citizens, just official money given by the government.
This sometimes even includes loans since all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress.
And how do we decide who gets the aid? Neediness? Friendliness towards the US? Similarity in culture and government sturcture?
No, That is not true and I challenge you to prove it. European countries give more per capita to the third world than the USA does.
Ugh…
These debates are always a bit problematic, because people define foreign aid in different ways.
In the foreign aid figures, we only see the official tally of Government spending by aid agencies. But US foreign aid goes significantly beyond that. In 2000 U.S. universities and colleges gave more to developing countries in foreign scholarships than Australia, Belgium, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland each gave in Official Aid.
Another thing that’s not included in the foreign aid figures is the staggering amount the US spends on the defense of ** other ** nations.
Training isn’t free, and the US pays to train tens of thousands of foreign police/military and other folks. The US maintains bases in friendly countries like Germany (where there’s simply not much need for them anymore) and that amounts to a subsidization of both that countries defence (allowing them to spend more on social giving programs both domestic and foreign) as well as US foreign aid by way of the economies they help create/maintain. It’s worth a couple BILLION dollars every year to Germany’s economy alone. During NATO operations in the Balkans, the US conducted about 2/3rds of the logistics and support efforts. By themselves. They also did 50% of the comabt missions. By themselves. The entire rest of the EU/NATO couldn’t muster what was needed to create a cease fire in their own backyard.
It’s a very problematic issue since there’s no way to simply say that American giving is reflected only by what the Government gives directly through aid agencies. It just doesn’t work that way.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Oh come on, even leaving aside the fact that Germany as a developed nation doesnt need aid, the US doesn’t maintain bases in Germany and elsewhere to assist the German economy, its because it serves a perceived US national security interest. Such things hardly merit counting in the same breath as foreign aid.
Well, our alliance with Germany. Tactical interest may have been served back when there were two Germanies, but I challenge you to tell me exactly why the US needs a major airbase in Germany now.
You are challenging the wrong person, I’m not going to defend the ‘need’ as there isnt one. My point is still that US defence costs in Germany (and elsewhere) arise from your perceived national interests and not from a desire to give aid to the German economy.
Yes, but having bases in Germany allows the Germans to lower their military budget, freeing them to give more foreign aid.
Even without bases, the promise of the US coming to a nation’s aid is a powerful incentive to spend less on your own defense.
Before the US took over defense for the entire free world, all democracies spent a lot on their own defense, knowing they were likely to be on their own should they be attacked.
The arguments posited by eolbo and sailor as not-so-subtle indictments of American “selfishness” and European “enlightened generosity” are inadequate, not to mention intellectually lazy.
First, as Bouncer, Bricker, and Adaher point out, eolbo and sailor don’t take into account a) private donations by American (or European)citizens, b) aid given in the form of American military assistance, or c) aid given amongst member EU countries.
Furthermore, folks like Eolbo and sailor smugly conclude that non-American countries and multilateral institutions “do more” to “help” nations and peoples in need than America based on these “per-capita” aid statistics.
To which I call bullshit. Countries that throw food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid at problems often make a bad situation worse.
My cousin worked for an NGO in Somalia. He arrived as a bright-eyed idealist determined to get food to starving children right around the time when America tried to use the Marines to feed starving Somalis. My cousin left a year and a half later, much more cynical, but much wiser.
According to my cousin, there was never a shortage of food in Somalia. Food aid poured in from all over Europe and America. Barely a trickle of it actually made it to those unfortunates the food was intended to feed.
As the movie Black Hawk Down depicted, the food shipments would be met at the port by heavily armed thugs loyal to one of the loathesome warlords. These thugs would confiscate the food and use it as a weapon of war to starve out their clan rivals. Because of various rules of engagement imposed by nameless, faceless UN bureaucracies, the confiscation of food was rarely challenged by those whose mission was to feed starving Somalis. The NGOs, armed only with good intentions (but not with guns or training to impose these good intentions), were helpless to deal with the situation.
Also, because everybody had guns, stealing food was a huge problem. My cousin said that because everybody (except those who were starving) had guns, the only way to deal with the stealing problem was to flood the country with so much food that it became too cheap to steal. Of course, flooding the country with so much food made the food grown by Somali farmers worthless.
What’s that saying? “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Yes, it’s entirely accurate to point out, as eolbo and sailor have, that European public foreign aid budgets are a higher percentage of the EU countries’ GNP than America’s.
And it’s just as accurate to retort, “Yes, European governments indeed do more to sustain the rule of warlords who use food as a weapon of war than the American government.”
Eolbo and sailor might be right regarding their “per-capita” statistics “proving” European “generosity.” but what does that really mean? Is the much-touted aid really doing what it should? Would you be so quick to tout this wonderful foreign aid if you understood that it perpetuates a dismal status quo more often than not?
Or is touting this public foreign aid just an easy way to pretend Europeans are morally superior to those fatcat, self-centered Americans? :dubious:
True but like most Americans, you overestimate how large the private component of your aid is. It is proportionately largely than the rest of the world’s but is still dwarfed by the government component as it is with every nation. At the moment, US government aid stands at 0.10% of GNP compared to the UN target of 0.70% which only the Northern European nations mentioned in Eolbo’s cite ever reach. Factor in private aid and that figure still struggles to only 0.14% of GNP.
Appalling. You would compare arms given to Turkey, Iran or Iraq or torture instruction given to Latin American dictators’ paramilitaries at the School of the Americas with food or medical aid?
… and we can only imagine he’s now forsaken his liberal-socialist ways and seen the light of the PNAC? OK, so I can’t claim a cousin who worked with an NGO but I have a brother in-law with one now. He’s been to Laos and will leave for Cambodia next year. He says the Laotians he worked with were extremely appreciative of his help and that he, himself, could see the positive changes he helped bring as well. Should I tell him to reconsider Cambodia before it’s too late? Whose example do you think is the exception; my brother in-law’s or your cousin’s?
Nice rant but may I suggest when you are speaking of intellectual laziness, that you dont use Blackhawk Down (a Hollywood action film most notable for being devoid of context) and your cousin’s anecdote as a rebuttal? Its a credibility thing.
I am curious though how your stance accomodates the decline of US foreign aid by nearly two-thirds since the 1980s? And like Sailor to Bricker I also challenge you to demonstrate your assertion that EU ‘foreign’ aid is to its member states.
Um no, that’s just your unsubstantiated assertion.
**True but like most Americans, you overestimate how large the private component of your aid is. It is proportionately largely than the rest of the world’s but is still dwarfed by the government component as it is with every nation. At the moment, US government aid stands at 0.10% of GNP compared to the UN target of 0.70% which only the Northern European nations mentioned in Eolbo’s cite ever reach. Factor in private aid and that figure still struggles to only 0.14% of GNP. **
You sure about that? Americans gave $500 billion to charity last year. That is 5% of GDP. I don’t know how much of that went overseas, but I would imagine a decent chunk of it did in donations to the Red Cross, remittances to foreign family members, and the occasional bequest to the UN, among countless other charities that are worldwide.
**True but like most Americans, you overestimate how large the private component of your aid is. It is proportionately largely than the rest of the world’s but is still dwarfed by the government component as it is with every nation. At the moment, US government aid stands at 0.10% of GNP compared to the UN target of 0.70% which only the Northern European nations mentioned in Eolbo’s cite ever reach. Factor in private aid and that figure still struggles to only 0.14% of GNP. **
You sure about that? Americans gave $500 billion to charity last year. That is 5% of GDP. I don’t know how much of that went overseas, but I would imagine a decent chunk of it did in donations to the Red Cross, remittances to foreign family members, and the occasional bequest to the UN, among countless other charities that are worldwide.
Um no, that’s just your unsubstantiated assertion.
Hardly. Much is made of American aid coming with “strings attached.” as if this is a bad thing. European aid is often in the form of direct aid to dictatorial governments which dispense the food as they please, which is to say to their supporters. Not that the US is any saint in this department, but sometimes we do try, as in Somalia, and sometimes we stop playing that game, as in North Korea.
The quote is that European governments do more to maintain the power of warlords then the US government. I still await the substantiation. In this context its also worth pointing out that the US government is apparently currently allied to these same warlords and funds them.