HORRIFIC: US Pledges $10.6 Billion Aid for Central America, Mexico

Oh yeah, this is the way to drain the swamp--make it a global crony fest.

The Trump administration has pledged $5.8 billion in aid for Central America, and another $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico.

The plan was announced in a joint U.S.-Mexican statement released by the State Department and read aloud by Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in the Mexican capital.

The U.S. State Department issued a simultaneous statement saying “The United States is committing $5.8 billion through public and private investment to promote institutional reforms and development in the Northern Triangle,” a term that refers to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

It should be remembered, as the saying goes, foreign aid is taking money from the poor and middle class in rich countries and giving it to the rich in poor countries.

Peter Bauer first made the observation in Dissent on Development:

[Foreign aid is] inevitably partly regressive because many taxpayers in donor countries are poorer than many people in recipient countries. This regressive aspect is increased in practice by the fact that foreign aid benefits better-off people within recipient countries, notably members of the urban population and especially politicians, civil servants, academics, and certain sections of the business community.

And Bauer also noted in From Subsistence to Exchange and other Essays:

To call official wealth transfers "aid" promotes an unquestioning attitude. It disarms criticism, obscures realities, and prejudges results. Who can be against aid to the less fortunate? The term has enabled aid supporters to claim a monopoly of compassion and to dismiss critics as lacking in understanding and compassion.

-RW