Dependency on Foreign Aid Hurts the Very People it Aims to Help

President Trump’s call for a pause on U.S. foreign aid has ignited a firestorm of criticism from the usual suspects but has also elicited support from some unlikely allies.

Writing in The Hill just after Christmas, Sean P. Brooks acknowledged that the current system for doling out financial assistance from the United States to foreign countries is hopelessly broken.

“The Trump administration should drastically scale back the agency’s global footprint,” urged Brook, who previously led the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) efforts in Somalia.

“In most cases, American aid does not promote our interests abroad because its strategic purpose is ill-conceived,” he noted. “Furthermore, most U.S.-funded projects — even when well thought out — fail to achieve their intended outcomes because of a broken delivery system. When it comes to USAID, Trump is right: ‘The system is rigged.’ Only deep and significant cuts can force strategic alignment and create the right incentives for the necessary reforms.”

To level set, the U.S. Department of State recently acknowledged America is spending approximately $40 billion a year in foreign aid. For perspective, that’s four out of every ten dollars in global humanitarian assistance.

The United States has a long history of giving aid to foreign countries, but there was strong resistance to it in the early days of our funding. James Madison objected to a proposed $15,000 expenditure to aid Haitian refugees fleeing their island from revolution and resettling in America.

“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of government,” wrote Madison. “It would puzzle any gentleman to lay his finger on any part of the Constitution which would authorize the government to interpose in the relief of … sufferers.”

In a perfect world, churches and charities would provide the needed help.

U.S. sponsored foreign aid really kicked into high gear during and after World War II. Between 1948 and 1951, America allocated $13.3 billion ($150 billion in today’s dollars) for the Marshall Plan. Those funds help rebuild a beleaguered Europe and prevented the Soviet Union from gaining a foothold in the fragile region.

From those designated dollars, the U.S. has poured all kinds of resources into over one-hundred nations, and for all kinds of reasons.

Over the years, Christians have had a special interest in humanitarian aid designated to alleviate suffering and starvation, especially. From preventing disease to digging wells to helping plants crops, America has served as a friend to countless individuals who never even set foot on our soil.

In issuing the 90-day pause on foreign aid, President Trump stated the current “bureaucracy [is] not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.” He added that U.S. funds are serving to “destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”

During an Oval Office exchange with reporters on Monday, President Trump said that he “loves the concept” of humanitarian aid, but that the dollars are too often given to individuals who turn out to be radicals.

In the aftermath of the executive order, officials made clear certain assistance was to continue, including emergency food aid to Israel and Egypt, along with “life-saving humanitarian assistance” around the world that consists of “medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”

Incidentally, PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) is still being funded.

Critics of the pause or any reevaluation of the current foreign aid being dispersed by the United States often cite the fact that the dollars spent constitute just one percent of the total United States budget. The insinuation, of course, is that America is a rich nation and can afford every dollar given.

But reducing the exercise to a purely financial proposition and equation ignores the fact that cultivating a dependency on foreign aid can create dangerous conditions that ultimately hurt the very people and countries those dollars are designed to help.

Any outcry over the freeze and potential cuts reflects the consequences of decades of bureaucrats kicking the proverbial can down the road. It was Ronald Reagan who famously quipped, “The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program.” United States foreign aid certainly fits that description.

The apostle Paul urged believers in Greece “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thess. 4:11-12).

In the coming months, officials have pledged to carefully study and review current foreign aid allocation. We pray these individuals will be wise and discerning, guided not by politics, but by what is in the best interest of all those involved.

Image from Shutterstock

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