Wednesday | 19 March 2025 | Reg No- 06
Bangla
   
Bangla | Wednesday | 19 March 2025 | Epaper
BREAKING: ● JU suspends teacher over sexual harassment      ● Finance Adviser assures rational budget for 2025-26 prioritising local needs      ● Air ticket fares drop by 75pc      ● SSC's math exam deferred by one day, new routine published      ● Lutfozzaman Babar acquitted of 17-year jail sentence      ● Inu-Menon-Anisul-Dipu Moni remanded in multiple cases of July uprising      ● 18 Bangladeshis, imprisoned in Myanmar scam centre, return home      

USAID should be cherished, not maligned

Published : Thursday, 20 February, 2025 at 12:00 AM  Count : 321
Yossi Mekelberg
For a new US administration to review the country's main policies in terms of objectives and optimizing the resources allocated to attain them is understandable, completely legitimate and, above all, necessary. After all, the American people spoke last November at the ballot box and wanted a change. And foreign assistance is no exception.

Nevertheless, President Donald Trump's executive order to pause all foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development for 90 days pending a review of "programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy" was nothing short of demagoguery to justify wrecking the humanitarian world. It is a move that will not make America great again, but rather exactly the opposite.

For now, it might be the case that the federal judge who last Thursday ordered a temporary lift to this funding freeze that has shut down US aid and development work worldwide has created the space for the new administration to save face. It should rethink this policy, which is as damaging for the developing world as much as it is to US interests, but this is an administration that seems to keep digging whenever it is in a hole.

For those who argue that America needs to reinvent itself as great again, the solution is not to turn its back on the world. One of the reasons that the US has been considered by many as a great nation is due to its foreign assistance programs since the end of the Second World War. And this has never been a form of charity, even if it has been charitable - this extension of its soft power has always been an important tool of foreign policy.

The Marshall Plan of 1947 was instrumental for the recovery of Europe and the rebuilding of its economies. Nevertheless, in return, it created markets for American goods and it enlarged the community of democracies that provided both an ideological safety net and strategic depth at the height of the Cold War. It was crucial for Europe's security and prosperity, but equally so for the US.
USAID was established in 1961 by the Democratic President John F. Kennedy with the clear aim of allocating resources to certain countries to counter Soviet influence. Today, in a world where Washington competes with Beijing to influence developing countries, ending USAID paves the way for a major rival to replace America's friendship and influence - two essential commodities in any sensible foreign policy.
It is true that foreign assistance is a large component of America's international affairs budget, but for many decades both the executive and legislative branches of the US government have seen this as an instrument of foreign policy, serving America's national security and commercial and humanitarian interests. Its objectives include promoting economic growth, reducing poverty, improving governance, expanding access to healthcare and education, promoting stability in conflict regions, countering terrorism, promoting human rights, strengthening alliances and curbing illicit drug production and trafficking. Moreover, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, foreign aid has increasingly been correlated with national security policy.

Yes, it is a big expense and the agency under scrutiny, USAID, spends about $40 billion - about 0.6 percent of the total annual US government spending - on humanitarian aid, much of which goes toward health programs. And in a time of relatively slow economic growth, when there are many competing domestic demands for federal budget assistance, it is understandable that some ask if these resources should not be diverted back to health, education and other good causes at home. But this is the superficial perception of foreign assistance, as draining domestic budgets in some sort of zero-sum game instead of striking the right balance between the two.

For the new US administration to single out USAID and foreign assistance more generally is partly ideological and partly populist gimmick. The latter is employed because, in times of economic hardship, it is a diversion from the need to deal head-on with the issues that are obstructing the growth of the US economy and the concomitant social hardships and divisions.

Most new administrations take their time to settle in, especially as the new senior team is one with little to no experience in government. A cooling-off period, after finishing a demanding, adversarial and polarizing election campaign, is an essential foundation for any presidency. But this is not Trump. He is always in campaigning mode and he feels most comfortable there.

However, Americans should also be aware how cutting foreign assistance is going to harm their relations with the world and how, eventually, these cuts will be replicated domestically through cuts to America's social services. The sick and the weak overseas are the first to receive this treatment, but they will not be the last.
SOURCE: ARAB NEWS


LATEST NEWS
MOST READ
Also read
Palestinians' lives blocked by checkpoints
What's netizen republic?
Rising divorce rates signal deeper social crisis 
Ensure safe Eid journey for urban people 
Will UN chief's visit facilitate repatriation of Rohingyas? 
Yunus-Modi tete-a-tete at BIMSTEC summit may break ice 
Danger of diluted legal terminology in upholding justice
Interim government should stick to 'middle ground' for an inclusive poll
Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
Published by the Editor on behalf of the Observer Ltd. from Globe Printers, 24/A, New Eskaton Road, Ramna, Dhaka.
Editorial, News and Commercial Offices : Aziz Bhaban (2nd floor), 93, Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.
Phone: PABX- 41053001-06; Online: 41053014; Advertisement: 41053012.
E-mail: [email protected], news©dailyobserverbd.com, advertisement©dailyobserverbd.com, For Online Edition: mailobserverbd©gmail.com
🔝
close