In the roil following the decision to recognize the capital of Israel to be Jerusalem, I suppose this constitutes President Trump “hitting back ten times harder.” From The New York Times:
President Trump issued a threat on Wednesday to cut off American aid to any country that votes for a resolution at the United Nations condemning his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Mr. Trump’s statement, delivered at a cabinet meeting in which he exulted over the passage of a tax overhaul, followed a letter to General Assembly members from the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, in which she warned that the United States would take note of countries that voted in favor of the measure.
“All of these nations that take our money and then they vote against us at the Security Council or they vote against us, potentially, at the Assembly, they take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Mr. Trump said.
“Well, we’re watching those votes,” he added. “Let them vote against us; we’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”
It is difficult to see how Mr. Trump can make good on that threat because it could involve cutting off financial assistance to the country’s most strategic allies in the Middle East. Some of those programs, like Egypt’s, are congressionally mandated. While the president can hold up aid unilaterally as a form of leverage, canceling it would require new legislation.
Just how much, maximally? WaPo had an article on the final Obama budget proposal, from October of 2016, which I can’t resist using as the numbers will be similar to the current budget, and the graphic is astonishing. I mean, I can tell you the entire budget proposal was for $4.15 trillion, of which $42.4 billion was foreign aid – roughly .1% of the budget. But I like the image better.
The inexperience of the President once again shines through. We’ll save a lot betrays his origins in the private sector and his inability to grow beyond them. This results in an inability to see that influence is a far more important commodity than money in the international arena, where the sharks aren’t cruising to make a bigger profit at your expense- but to do real, tangible damage to those seen as standing in the way of their national goals. Some of these attacks are obvious, such as China’s striving to be #1 in Artificial Intelligence, and the consequences of holding such a strategic position – whatever those might be. Others are far more subtle, such as Russia’s attempts to undermine our faith in our system of government.
But it does raise the question of the purpose of foreign aid. Why do we help other countries? Well, we’re not buying control over them. That’d be akin to colonialism, and we generally try to avoid such foolishness.
No, we’re doing a couple of things. First, as WaPo says, we’re shoring up strategic allies. Second, we’re buying good will. We’re showing that we’re willing to help out.
How does this square with the current incident? Friends can have honest differences of opinion. Do they halt the friendship? Of course not. Now, it’s somewhat problematic to use this analogy with nations, but it’s really going to happen anyways. The violent creation of the State of Israel at the end of World War II is not without controversy, especially as it involved the movement of Jewish refugees from Europe to Israel. It should be no surprise that a number of nations with religious or ideological objections plan to vote for the resolution.
And trying to blackmail them into supporting us will simply dissipate all that good will.
He just can’t grow out of his origins, can he?
