The Trump administration is making a major error by obstructing the effective allocation of foreign aid spending. As CNN reports, the Office of Management and Budget has stopped the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development from continuing ongoing programs.
This makes America less safe.
It’s also mathematically absurd. The Trump administration and Democrats continue to ignore entitlement reform, which would fix structural out of control spending. But the foreign aid budget is minimal as a percentage of total government spending. More than that, this spending has already been authorized by Congress. And as I’ve noted, U.S.A.I.D. is far more transparent than most agencies in outlining where, how, and to what effect it spends taxpayer money.
The White House is thus acting with obvious executive overreach and without any good cause.
These spending caps will make America less safe. They will hurt ongoing programs like those in Central America which reduce gang violence and promote domestic prosperity. Those programs provide a direct alternative to individuals who might otherwise attempt to travel to the United States. I thought the Trump administration wanted to reduce illegal-immigration.
Diane Zeleny of the International Republican Institute, which promotes global democracy and good government, put it to me this way: “Many of these cuts would have direct impact on the administration’s foreign policy priorities: work that supports the democratic processes in Tunisia and Burma, funding for the democratic opposition in Venezuela and Nicaragua … cancels $280 million in unobligated funds to support the Indo-Pacific Strategy, expand trade and energy programming, and counter China’s malign influence.”
It isn’t just U.S.A.I.D., the State Department, and the International Republican Institute which matter here. There is a litany of other organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy that deliver great bang for the buck. But the fact that the administration is obstructing American interests in the Indo-Pacific is especially absurd. Do we want to sustain the U.S.-led international democratic order in the 21st century? Or do we want China’s feudalism to dominate the globe?
The Trump administration must reconsider its decision here. This does nothing to keep America great — quite the opposite, in fact.
