Andres Oppenheimer
On occasion of the recent anniversary of the earthquake that shook
I'm not kidding.
If you are alarmed by these figures, and you think that all prophesies about the inexorable decline of U.S. influence around the world are bound to come true if
The new Republican majority in the
Congressional sources tell me that Republicans would cut foreign aid programs worldwide by between 10 percent and 30 percent.
Some ultra-conservative Republicans, such as
House Republicans are seeking to cut at least 2,170
Wouldn't you weaken U.S. diplomacy by cutting foreign aid like this, I asked the new chairwoman of the
Ros Lehtinen, who is more pro-foreign aid than most of her fellow conservative Republican colleagues, told me that "If we are cutting the budget at home in
Most Democrats fear the proposed foreign aid cuts will cripple U.S. diplomacy. They cite a remark by U.S. Secretary of Defense
Rep.
My Opinion: While the United States is the world's largest donor country in dollar terms, it is already one of the stingiest of the world's richest countries in terms of the size of its economy: it gives out only 0.2 percent of its gross domestic product in foreign assistance, compared with 1 percent for
What's more significant -- and you won't hear this on
Perhaps, in the wake of the Wikileaks disclosures,
But the drastic foreign aid cuts proposed by Republicans could lead to a slow motion U.S. diplomatic suicide. The fact that
Available at Amazon.com:
At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes
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(C) 2011 Andres Oppenheimer, The Miami Herald Distributed by Tribune Media Services