Trump Wants to Aid Only ‘America’s Friends.’ If Only It Were That Easy. - New York Times

Trump Wants to Aid Only ‘America’s Friends.’ If Only It Were That Easy.

By STEVEN ERLANGERFEB. 3, 2018

President Trump delivering his first State of the Union address on Tuesday. “We’ll save a lot,” he said of cutting aid to countries that oppose American positions. “We don’t care.” Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

BRUSSELS — Distinguishing friends from enemies can be difficult. Sometimes friends disagree, and even enemies will occasionally do things for you that friends will not.

So President Trump’s insistence in his State of the Union address this past week that Congress pass laws to ensure that “American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America’s friends” may not be as easy as it seems.

Threats to cut American foreign aid have long been a talking point, particularly among Republicans trying to stir their base by tapping a popular, if inaccurate, perception that the money sent abroad is vast.

Previous presidents have threatened to cut foreign aid, too, often to punish countries for violating human rights. Mr. Trump appears more motivated by the notion that the United States gets little in return.

That view, several experts noted, overlooks the fact that the United States has always given aid to promote American interests, even if Mr. Trump’s conception of the national interest is narrower than that of many of his predecessors.

Whether or not Congress actually follows through, the president’s warning left the impression of a superpower threatening to pick up its marbles and go home, they said. And they said it may only succeed in stoking resentment abroad and diminishing American influence in the world.

Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, said damage has already been done.

Palestinians collecting aid parcels at a United Nations food distribution center in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Trump has withheld $65 million in aid to the United Nations refugee agency. Credit Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Everyone knows the money serves U.S. interests, which is also true of European money,” he said. “But this feels ugly. And this is in the State of the Union, so it has gone through a policy process, so it matters more. There’s a difference between the Twitter and the Teleprompter version of Trump policy.”

In any case, only about 1 percent of the United States federal budget goes to foreign aid — and about 40 percent of that is considered security assistance, rather than economic or humanitarian aid.

Americans nonetheless remain convinced that the country spends far more. In a 2015 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average respondent thought that 26 percent of the federal budget went to foreign aid. More than half the respondents thought the United States was spending too much on foreign aid.

Even if the amounts of American aid are relatively small, the payoff can be substantial in leverage for the United States, in enhancing its image and promoting its values, others noted. That is changing.

Mr. Trump, in his speech, referred to the many countries that voted disapproval of his decision to eventually move the American Embassy in Israel to disputed Jerusalem.

On Thursday, his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, told Republican legislators that she was “taking names’’ at the body, adding: “I can’t tell you how helpful it is to have a Congress that backs us up. When y’all play the heavy, it makes it so much easier for me to play the bad cop with a smile.”

Beyond retribution, however, Mr. Trump has also made a theme of “America First,” proclaiming his dislike of programs like democracy promotion and generic humanitarian aid.

A protest against American aid cuts in Lahore, Pakistan. Credit Arif Ali/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“I’m sure Trump thinks it’s different, but in practical terms the U.S. has always been giving aid based on U.S. interests and needs,” said Xenia Wickett, a former United States official who runs the Americas program at Chatham House, the foreign affairs research institution.

“What’s changing is the view of American soft power,” she added. “With Jerusalem and the State of the Union, there is a view that America is no longer doing the right thing and no longer for the right reasons. Its self-interest is explicit, as if it doesn’t care, so those who gave Americans the benefit of the doubt no longer do so, and it does damage.”

Marc Otte, the former European Union special representative for the Middle East peace process and a senior fellow at the Egmont Institute, Belgium’s Royal Institute for International Relations, said that cutting American aid reduces, not enhances, American influence.

But the “broader question is whether America is reliable,” Mr. Otte said. “These are long-term commitments, and what does this mean for the U.N. system, for refugees, for Syria and Yemen if U.N. agencies are constrained.”

It creates resentment among other donor countries, too, he said.

As a government, America gives less as a percentage of its gross national income than other countries — only 0.17 percent, well below the 0.3 percent average for developed countries. But because the economy is so large, Americans still provide more foreign aid in total than any other country, and aid cuts do cause disruptions.

Even before the United Nations vote in December against the American decision on Jerusalem, Mr. Trump said he wanted to cut the Obama administration’s spending on foreign aid, about $42.4 billion, to $27.3 billion, and fold the United States Agency for International Development into the State Department.

And he warned that he would withhold “billions” from countries that voted against him. “Let them vote against us,” he said. “We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

The General Assembly in December overwhelmingly denounced the Trump administration’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. Credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars,” he added. “We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”

Mr. Trump’s warning appeared aimed largely at countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are regarded as more vulnerable to American pressure.

More recently, offended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s sharp criticism of the Jerusalem move, Mr. Trump ordered that $65 million in American aid be withheld from the United Nations refugee agency that serves the Palestinians.

At least 11 countries, including Russia, Belgium and Norway, have rushed to pay their own annual contributions early and in full, to fill the gap. Pressed by Norway, the European Union held an emergency session last week to seek faster contributions to the refugee agency.

Even the Israeli government has quietly criticized the cut to the agency, which provides much of the schooling and health care in Gaza and the West Bank, meaning that Israel, considered by most of the world as an occupying power, is not under obligation to do so.

Mr. Bildt suggested that the Europeans should not contribute more, but let Israel cope with the fallout of the aid cut. Noting that Israel was lobbying in Washington against the cutbacks, he asked: “Why should we jump in there? If it collapses, it is the responsibility of the occupying country, Israel, which should pay the costs of its occupation.”

Mr. Trump has also suspended aid to Pakistan over its ties to the Taliban, and that is a more popular act, said Ian Lesser, a former American official who runs the German Marshall Fund office here.

“On Egypt and especially Pakistan,” which receive large amounts of United States aid, “a lot of the foreign policy establishment will agree,” he said. “There’s a lot of pent-up dissatisfaction with countries that have not been helpful.

“With some key countries,” he added, “it could be that Trump’s assertiveness comes together with this pent-up frustration to produce change.”