Informative Essay: Foreign Aid In The United States

“Give to the needy...For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Luke 12:33-34. Human beings have an inherent inclination to give to those less fortunate than themselves. The modern model of U.S. government feels it’s their duty to ensure the benevolence of this nation as well, and anytime that government is involved in the dispersal of wealth, it must be fair.. However this standard is unattainable and therefore extremely flawed. Foreign aid has some advantages and numerous flaws that can be best summarized with these three main reasons: Foreign aid sometimes reaches its goal of improving impoverished nations, it can have several negative effects on the economy and can fail to more permanently help the recipient nation by not

Because “Technically, foreign aid is an external inflow of resources affecting the opportunity costs for a government’s allocation of its own domestic resources (for example, Jones 2005).” To put that in simpler terms, aid is supposed to be a free loan to a underdeveloped or impoverished country in order to help the said country efficiently utilize their natural resources, jumpstart their economy, provide basic needs like medicine, food, and clean water, and develop infrastructure. Likewise “In countries where domestic savings were very low, these would be supplemented with foreign savings in the form of foreign aid. At the same time, the government would make efforts to generate (or “mobilize”) additional resources to finance capital accumulation and industrialization.” To the end of human needs and betterment of a nations well-being, “Advocates say that by helping poor countries and giving them financial assistance and helping them in times of natural disasters and providing medical help like vaccines for diseases, a time will come that these countries will be able to improve their economies.” and “With millions of families living below poverty lines, contributing in any way through money, trainings and medical assistance can promote equality and better the lives of other

assistance) is the influence of democracy and a productive economy on a recipient nation. Likewise, some donors and scholars expected that development aid would further democratization. It had been hoped that, in addition to directly supporting democratic institutions, development aid would indirectly enhance democratization through an economic modernization effect that furthered education and welfare (Knack 2004).

While the influence of a benefactor nation can be used in the best interest of benefiting the recipient nation, it also goes both ways. Unfortunately, a donor nation can also use their support as a means of blackmailing a recipient country to conforming to their own political agenda and exploiting them for their resources. Many scholars critique foreign aid stating that oftentimes, developing countries which can give back benefits are the ones given assistance instead of nations which really need help. They also argue that some countries who give aid use this as a tool to control the recipient country in terms of favors like setting up military bases, which leave the poor country no