The Triumph Of Realism In Foreign Aid – OpEd

Among the Trump administration’s many disturbing shifts in foreign policy, one of its more shameful moves has been to use foreign aid as a tool for advancing U.S. national power.

Rather than claiming that foreign aid stems from a genuine concern for the well-being of humanity, as previous administrations have done, the Trump administration has determined that U.S. assistance should be used to increase the power of the United States, if it is to be used at all.

“Foreign aid is not charity,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this year. “It exists for the purpose of advancing the national interest of the United States.”

U.S. Foreign Aid

For decades, the United States has been a major donor of foreign aid. Organizations such as the State Department and the recently dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development have funded programs in many areas, including humanitarian assistance, economic development, democracy promotion, and security assistance.

In fiscal year 2022, the United States committed more than $70 billion in foreign aid to an estimated 180 countries and territories worldwide, amounting to one percent of the federal government’s total budget. The top recipients were Ukraine and Israel, with each country receiving billions in U.S. support.

Recent polling indicates that the U.S. public is lukewarm about military assistance but is highly supportive of humanitarian aid. Large majorities of Americans believe the United States should provide people in developing countries with food, clothing, and medicine.

Officials in Washington have often characterized the United States as the most generous country in the world, but there are reasons to doubt their claims. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that U.S. development assistance, which does lead other countries overall, ranks far lower when taking into account the total wealth of the United States.

In 2024, for instance, the United States did not spend 0.7 percent of its gross national income on development assistance, an annual target established by the United Nations. The U.S. government has never accepted the target, giving lower priority to assistance than its peers.

Opposing Viewpoints

Officials in Washington have long been divided over foreign aid. Advocates of foreign aid have disagreed over its purpose, with many wanting to use it to advance national security and commercial interests rather than help people. Critics have questioned whether foreign aid is effective, recommending that it be redirected to the domestic population.

Among experts on foreign relations, there are further divisions. Liberals have argued that foreign aid is important for supporting people in need. Believing that the United States should play a positive role in the world, they have presented foreign aid as a way of assisting people who are living in countries that lack the means to support them.

Realists have taken a different position, claiming that foreign aid can be a useful tool in power politics. Starting from the position that international politics is a struggle for power, they have come to the conclusion that foreign aid should be deployed as a weapon for empowering U.S. allies and weakening U.S. rivals.

During the first Trump administration, then-State Department planner Brian Hook made the case for a realist approach. In a memo he prepared for then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Hook claimed that the United States should downplay humanitarian concerns among its allies but emphasize them for its adversaries, who he believed could be outmaneuvered on humanitarian grounds.

Pressing U.S. adversaries on human rights, Hook advised, “is one way to impose costs, apply counter-pressure, and regain the initiative from them strategically.”

Now that the second Trump administration has moved against non-military assistance altogether, however, a corollary to the realist position has been gaining traction. Among the administration’s supporters, there is a growing sense that all foreign aid should be abandoned on the grounds that it does not advance U.S. power. In other words, the administration’s supporters are taking the position that foreign aid is not effective at bolstering allies or weakening adversaries.

Realist critics are not saying that humanitarian assistance does not provide lifesaving aid. Many realists agree that food and medicine save lives. What gives them pause is the idea that humanitarian assistance does not strengthen U.S. power.

“We don’t want to see people die and the like,” Rubio said earlier this year. Ultimately, however, “our foreign aid has to be a tool that we use to advance the national interest.”

Recent Considerations

At an April 30 congressional hearing, former officials and members of Congress gave some consideration to the evolving conversation about foreign aid. Although the participants shared multiple perspectives, with some defending foreign aid on humanitarian grounds, their discussion reflected the extent to which thinking in Washington has shifted in favor of realist views.

Among the witnesses, retired U.S. diplomat James Jeffrey stood apart for his frank comments and realist analysis. Citing his own experience as a diplomat, Jeffrey sided with the realist critics, saying that foreign aid is not very effective at changing countries, increasing U.S. power, or acquiring advantages over great power rivals.

“All of the things we’re doing to try to change societies, whether to compete with the Chinese or push back on the Russians, I haven’t seen a whole lot of success,” Jeffrey said. “And I’ve been responsible for some of the largest ones,” he added, likely referring in part to his role in regime change in Syria.

Despite his concerns, Jeffrey agreed that foreign aid has contributed to U.S. strategy. Recalling his work as a special envoy to Syria in the first Trump administration, when he abetted the militant group that later overthrew the Syrian government, Jeffrey noted that humanitarian assistance helped to prevent displaced Syrians from fleeing to Turkey and Europe. Without humanitarian assistance, he said, displaced Syrians might not have remained in Syria.

“The humanitarian assistance was absolutely essential to keeping them there,” he said, indicating that he favored it as a tool for controlling people displaced by war.

Despite his harsh assessment, Jeffrey provided some nuance, remaining willing to entertain idealist reasons for humanitarian assistance. When the participants in the hearing turned their attention to the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a U.S. program that has provided lifesaving assistance to millions of people, Jeffrey insisted that the program has been critical for its humanitarian function.

“This program deserves to be continued,” Jeffrey said. Whether or not PEPFAR generates good will toward the United States or plays a role in advancing U.S. foreign policy, “it doesn’t matter,” he added. “It’s worthwhile in and of itself.”

Jeffrey’s striking expression of idealism was a major departure from the realist approach, showing that even realists are capable of escaping dogmatic thinking and putting human life first. However, he did agree with a point made by his colleague David Hale, a former State Department official who testified that PEPFAR plays a role in safeguarding state power.

According to Hale, PEPFAR is important not just for saving lives of people around the world but for limiting the spread of disease to the United States.

“I think it’s perhaps most useful to cast it in terms of protecting our nation,” Hale stated. Alluding to a recent outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Uganda, he specified, “you know: better to fight Ebola in Uganda than in Milwaukee.”

The Cold Logic of Realism

Since the start of the second Trump administration, officials in Washington have become far more comfortable with publicly articulating the realist position, despite its cold logic of treating people as means rather than ends. Whereas they had once made an effort to insist that all human beings should be treated with dignity, even if there is no direct connection to U.S. foreign policy, they are now openly saying that they are primarily interested in using foreign aid to strengthen U.S. national power.

The shifting conversation has revealed an essential characteristic of the Trump administration. At the same time that the mass media has been focusing on the administration’s misleading claims about allegedly wasteful spending on DEI programs and allegations by the president that the U.S. Agency for International Development has been run by “radical lunatics,” high-level officials have been making an altogether different case. Behind the lies and provocations, their position has been that the real calculation comes down to power.

Rubio, who has played a leading role in defending the administration’s approach, has always come back to the idea that foreign aid must work to the advantage of U.S. power.

“It’s our taxpayer money,” Rubio said earlier this year. Spending that money should “be aligned with the national interest, and if it isn’t, it needs to stop.”

• This article was published at FPIF