Should We Immediately Pause Foreign Aid?

Shock and Awe and USAID

Even Trump supporter describe his first three weeks in office as a shock-and-awe strategy. The onslaught of activity from the Trump administration has shocked and disoriented Trump’s opponents (and I would posit, some of his supporters). Perhaps more importantly, it overloads the nation’s attention and keeps any single individual action from getting much attention.

But some of Trump’s actions have broken through.

On Trump’s first day back in power, he signed an executive order pausing nearly all the foreign aid spending. During the pause, the Trump administration will evaluate all the foreign aid spending. The evaluative lens is “America First”: each program needs to somehow benefit the U.S. (source).

There are more reasons for the pause and evaluation, apparently. The administration’s comments since the pause have also shown that part of the administration’s goals is to cut programs that appear to promote progressive values overseas. There is further concern about inefficiencies and waste.

But underlying their actions is the belief that the current approach to foreign aid (indeed, the current approach to foreign policy) hurts the U.S. in a way that the American people do not want. And Trump’s election is a mandate from the people to align the federal bureaucracy with the will of the people.

Disruption and Confusion in Foreign Aid

The United States’s influence around the globe is immense. Billions of dollars go towards disaster and poverty relief, and our funds help refugees around the world. Even supporters of Trump’s pause on foreign aid must acknowledge that the sudden stoppage of aid created chaos and further the suffering of people around the world.

News articles abound detailing the impact of programs cut. One recent article describes, among others, these examples of disrupted programs:

· Food assistance to over one million people in Ethiopia.

· Lifesaving support to refugees from violence in Columbia.

· A program helping disabled children in Vietnam.

· A program helping to feed 25,000 “extremely malnourished children” in Nigeria.

· Aid programs in Syria that help 2.5 million people.

These disruptions are not surprising. Aid organizations did not have time to adjust to halt in funds: they could not slowly adjust their programs; nor could they seek out additional funds before the U.S.’s financial aid stopped. From what I can tell, the Trump administration is not denying the effects of the foreign aid pause.

The Ethics of the Sudden Pause

As far as I can tell, the supporters of Trump’s pause think it was not only sensible, but ethical. The American people don’t want our tax dollars wasted oversea, we’re told, nor do they want their spent overseas when so many needs exist in America.

There’s much in these assumptions to nitpick. Is money spent reducing the spread of AIDS in Africa wasted? Isn’t foreign aid reasonable since it purchases us leverage and power around that world that enables us to shape the world more to our liking (i.e. soft power)? Are foreign aid expenditures large enough to genuinely affect our country’s financial situation? Are most Americans really opposed to these relief efforts?

My thoughts have been on a separate issue.

Is it ethical to stop financial aid even if the financial aid was done without the support of the American people? What’s the ethical way to handle such a situation?

A Hypothetical Situation

Imagine the following situation:

You own a business large enough that you need a C.F.O. to oversee its finances. Due to health reasons, you take a break from the business and become completely disconnected from the business and leave it in the hands of your C.F.O.

Your health recovers, and you return to review your business’s financial situation.

To your shock, you discover that your C.F.O. had spend some of your business’s profit to cover the groceries of a local single mother and her children. The C.F.O. did this knowing that you would not have approved of this expense. And you need to stop this expense for the long-term health of your business.

How should you handle this situation?

It’s clear you do not have an obligation to help this family indefinitely; you do not even have an obligation to help this family for however long the C.F.O. had promised help.

But it seems equally clear that it would be wrong to stop the help immediately. The needy family was not to blame for the C.F.O.’s decision. And since the financial help from your business enabled them to meet their needs, they would not have looked for other sources of income.

The ethical way to handle this situation would be to continue the help for a little longer and inform the family that you would be stopping the financial help. But immediately stopping the help would be cruel, even though it would cost you money and you had not aproved.

Likewise, if the Trump administration is right that USAID needs to be drastically reduced – with many of its programs completely eliminated – then there is a more compassionate way to do that. Evaluate the programs. Eliminate the programs that aren’t helping America. Reduce spending, if necessary, on programs that are good but too expensive for our current budget crisis. But don’t cut the funds immediately, especially the funds that help the hungry, the sick, the refugees, and others in desperate need. Give them a head’s up; give them time to find other funds.

“But the Debt Emergency!”

But wouldn’t the businessowner from the hypothetical be justified in stopping the financial help to the needy family if the business were out of money? Must the businessowner go into debt to help the family?

Surely not!

And, so, isn’t it unfair to criticize the Trump administration’s pausing of foreign aid? Isn’t America, in one sense, out of money?

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the Trump administration’s actions with D.O.G.E, pausing foreign aid, and pausing federal grants has been justified by the budget crisis. Of course, our national debt is enormous. The budget isn’t balanced. Our entitlement programs have a worrisome future.

But our nation’s finances are not in a crisis. Changes are needed, undoubtedly. But a more compassionate approach to ending foreign aid does not threaten our financial solvency.

After all, neither the Trump administration nor the Republican congress seems to be taking emergency measures. The current cuts are rounding errors on the budget. And the Republicans seem on track to pass a budget that spends more than we have: if there were truly a fiscal crisis, the Republicans would immediately balance the budget, no matter the political cost.

But the crisis is not that severe.

U.S.A.I.D. was cut without compassion when a compassionate option was available.

And there’s something wrong about that.