By Brian Carnell

Tuesday, November 30, 1999

Bonnie Erbe is normally a bleeding heart liberal (which is not necessarily the worst thing in the world to be), but after noting that most foreign aid usually ends up reinforcing corruption, she still calls for an increase in such aid to help American businesses compete. She buys hook, line and sinker a line from some American businessmen that the only reason a North African government choose their French competitors to set up a cellular phone network was because of France's generous foreign aid package.

Even a bleeding heart liberal like Erbe should realize that using foreign aid as a Corporate Welfare program is downright idiotic. What is the point of transferring money from poor people in the United States to American businessmen who are apparently so incompetent they cannot even compete with French firms? You would get better use out of such foreign aid by taking that pile of money and burning it in Central Park to keep the homeless there warm.

More importantly, the single major lesson from the past 50 years of foreign aid is that despite the best intentions of those giving it, such aid inevitably reinforces and props up corrupt government policies even when funneled primarily through NGOs as Erbe proposes. Countries receiving U.S. aid read like a Who's Who of 20th century human rights abusers and corrupt regimes.

The United States can do a lot more for places like Africa simply by lowering its trade barriers and otherwise staying out of African country's affairs.

Source:

In defense of foreign aid. Bonnie Erbe, Scripps Howard, 1999.

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