U.S. Needs To Maintain Or Increase Foreign Aid Budget To Fulfill Security, Health, Economic Growth Targets

American Interest: Why We Need Foreign Aid
Stephen D. Krasner, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University

“…The fundamental objective of our foreign assistance program should be security, health, and economic growth. These three goals are consistent with our interests and with the interests of elites in target states, even autocratic elites. … In addition to security, health, and economic growth there are two other objectives that American foreign assistance broadly understood can address. First, we can limit the impact of humanitarian crises. … Second, we might be able in some special circumstances to stop conflicts before they spread or mitigate their impact after they have taken place. … In our own self-interest, we should be providing more foreign aid, not less, as we refine our approaches to the many serious challenges that development aid, along with other policy instruments, addresses. Cutting the budgets of the State Department and USAID in such a massive way [as proposed in the Trump administration’s FY18 budget] would both crush morale and cripple crucial capabilities, making the United States less secure…” (6/19).

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