For decades the United States has been a leader in the fight against disease and poverty abroad. These efforts save lives. They also create U.S. jobs. And they make Americans more secure by making poor countries more stable and stopping disease outbreaks before they become pandemics. The world is not a safer place when more people are sick or hungry.
More broadly, the America First worldview concerns me. It’s not that the United States shouldn’t look out for its people. The question is how best to do that. My view is that engaging with the world has proven over time to benefit everyone, including Americans, more than withdrawing does. Even if we measured everything the government did only by how much it helped American citizens, global engagement would still be a smart investment.
Nigel Peters was the man on stage. He was then head of a little-known government unit called the Aid-Funded Business Service, which was set up to help UK companies win contracts funded by public money to help the world’s poorest people.
The UN only places business with companies when the budget is already secure
Instead, much of it took a while to get anywhere – passing through sometimes very long chains of contractors and subcontractors. Far from simple transfers of cash, when donors pledge aid money, there was no guarantee it would ever make it to the countries it was supposedly ‘for’.
But, in 2011, the NGO that had led the legal challenge against aid for the Pergau dam sounded the alarm again, after then development secretary Andrew Mitchell reportedly linked aid to India with ambitions to sell BAE Typhoon fighter jets to the country.