Murray Rothbard on how foreign aid subsidizes exports

Another crucial feature of post-World War II establishment trade policy in the name of "free trade" is to push heavy subsidies of exports.  A favorite method of subsidy has been the much beloved system of foreign aid, which, under the cover of "reconstructing Europe," "stopping Communism," or "spreading democracy," is a racket by which the American taxpayers are forced to subsidize American export firms and industries as well as foreign governments who go along with this system.  Nafta represents a continuation of this system by enlisting the U.S. government and American taxpayers in this cause.

~ Murray Rothbard, "The Nafta Myth"

(Article appeared in Making Economic Sense, p. 308.)

Bradley Greer: Bill Gates, George Soros and WEF recipients of USAID

USAID has long been a key player in U.S. foreign policy, providing aid to countries worldwide under the banner of so-called “humanitarian assistance and development.” 

The agency has also faced scrutiny for its role in funding programs that critics argue align with broader geopolitical strategies rather than purely philanthropic goals. 

Historically, USAID has been involved in funding initiatives such as international vaccine programs and “democracy promotion efforts.” 

Bill Gates

One of the major recipients of USAID funding has been the GAVI Alliance, an international vaccine initiative supported by Bill Gates. 

In 2020, USAID committed $1.16 billion to GAVI for fiscal years 2020 to 2023, with an additional $1.58 billion pledged for the following five years. Reports indicate that total contributions to GAVI could exceed $2 billion. 

George Soros

Additionally, USAID has been linked to funding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in political and economic programs worldwide.

A 2017 report from the Heritage Foundation suggested that George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) had played a significant role in implementing USAID-funded initiatives since at least 2009.

Historical documents indicate that USAID and OSF collaborated as early as 1993 to train professionals in Eastern Europe. 

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, OSF-affiliated NGOs were involved in political movements across Eastern Europe, including Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004.

[...] 

World Economic Forum

Beyond individual programs, USAID has also been involved with international organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF). Between 2013 and 2022, USAID invested approximately $26 million in multi-year agreements connected to WEF initiatives. 

In response, House Republicans introduced the ‘Defund Davos Act’ in January 2024, seeking to prohibit U.S. government agencies, including USAID, from funding the WEF. 

Legislators supporting the bill argued against the use of taxpayer dollars to support the Forum’s initiatives. 

~ Bradley Greer, "Calls for Bill Gates and George Soros Arrest For Defrauding Taxpayer of Billions Through USAID," Disswire.com, February 14, 2025

Bernie Sanders on U.S. aid to Israel

I am very worried about what Netanyahu is doing and some of his allies in government and what may happen to the Palestinian people.  And let me tell you something: I haven't said this publicly, but I think the United States gives billions of dollars in aid to Israel, and I think we've got to put some strings attached to that.  And so you cannot run a racist government, you cannot turn your back on the two-state solution, you cannot demean the Palestinian people there.  You just can't do it and come to America and ask for money.

~ Bernie Sanders, "Bernie Sanders on the Truth About Israel and AIPAC," The Majority Report, February 21, 2023

William Easterly on foreign aid

Too much of America’s foreign aid funds what I call authoritarian development. That’s when the international community–experts from the U.N. and other bodies–swoop into third-world countries and offer purely technical assistance to dictatorships like Uganda or Ethiopia on how to solve poverty.

Unfortunately, dictators’ sole motivation is to stay in power. So the development experts may get some roads built, but they are not maintained. Experts may sink boreholes for clean water, but the wells break down. Individuals do not have the political rights to protest disastrous public services, so they never improve. Meanwhile, dictators are left with cash and services to prop themselves up–while punishing their enemies.

But there is another model: free development, in which poor individuals, asserting their political and economic rights, motivate government and private actors to solve their problems or to give them the means to solve their own problems.

Compare free development in Botswana with authoritarian development in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia in 2010, Human Rights Watch documented how the autocrat Meles Zenawi selectively withheld aid-financed famine relief from everyone except ruling-party members. Meanwhile democratic Botswana, although drought-prone like Ethiopia, has enjoyed decades of success in preventing famine. Government relief directed by local activists goes wherever drought strikes.

~ William Easterly, "Stop sending aid to dictators," Time, March 13, 2014

Steve Berger on foreign aid

I believe we should not give any foreign aid to any country on the P.T. Bauer theory that it is unjust taxation of US citizens to finance the purchase of munitions, monuments and Mercedes for foreign autocrats.

~ Steve Berger

Ron Paul on Biden asking for another $24 billion to support Ukraine in war with Russia

As Maui Burns, Biden Demands Another $24 Billion…For Ukraine! 

I am not a big fan of Federal Government disaster relief. Too much of the time the money never gets to those who need it most, and too often Washington’s armies of disaster “experts” are more interested in pushing people around than helping them. 

Nevertheless, it’s hard to look at recent footage of the devastation in Maui and then hear President Biden tell Congress that he needs another $24 billion for Ukraine. How can this Administration continue to justify tens of billions of dollars for this losing war that is not in our interest while the rest of the United States disintegrates? 

Biden’s new $24 billion request comes on top of well over $120 billion already spent to fight the US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. Heritage Foundation budget expert Richard Stern has done the math and determined that Biden’s spending on the Ukraine war thus far will cost each and every American household $900. How many Americans would rather have those 900 dollars back in their pocket rather than in the pockets of Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, and Ukraine’s oligarchs? 

Recent surveys have shown that a majority of Americans could not afford to cover a sudden $1,000 emergency. Will Americans connect the dots and realize that the reason they can’t find that $1,000 for an emergency is because the neocons have already sent it to Ukraine? 

Ukraine has long been known as among the most corrupt countries on earth and not long ago investigative journalist Seymore Hersh wrote that Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky has embezzled at least $400 million in aid from the American people. Corruption scandals continue to break in Ukraine. Just last week Zelensky fired the heads of all local draft boards for corruption. Some press reports suggest that sales of luxury cars in Ukraine have broken all previous records. I wonder why.

No wonder the tide of U.S. public opinion is turning against further involvement in the war. Recently CNN found that among all Americans, more than 55 percent are opposed to continued aid to Ukraine. Among Republicans the number opposing more aid to Ukraine rises to three-out-of-four. That is why we are finally starting to see more Republican Members raising concerns. I’d like to think they have seen the light that an aggressive and interventionist foreign policy is not in America’s interest, but most likely they are worried about losing elections. Whatever their motivation, this turning tide should be welcomed. 

Yet the Biden Administration persists in backing Ukraine even as the U.S. mainstream media is increasingly pointing out the obvious: Ukraine is not winning and cannot win, and continuing to pour money into a losing cause will just result in bankruptcy at home and more dead Ukrainians overseas.

Last week Newsweek published an article asking, “Does Ukraine Have Kompromat on Joe Biden?” In the article, Northeastern University Professor Max Abrahms wonders out loud whether Biden’s continued support for Ukraine might be related to compromising information held in Kiev about the many Biden family shady business ventures in Ukraine and the region. It is certainly worth considering.

Meanwhile, the residents of Maui who survived the recent horrific fire will take little comfort knowing that the Biden Administration is more interested in sending their money to Ukraine than in helping them recover.

~ Ron Paul, Campaign For Liberty, August 20, 2023

Peter Bauer on foreign aid

If mainsprings of development are present, material progress will occur even without foreign aid.  If they are absent, it will not occur with aid.

~ Peter Bauer, development economist

Bono has a change of heart on the cure for poverty

Aid is just a stop-gap.  Commerce (and) entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid...  In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid.  Free enterprise is a cure...  Entrepreneurship is the most sure way of development.

~ Bono, speech at Georgetown University, 2013

Doug Casey on foreign aid

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.


~Douglas Casey

Sheldon Richman on explaining poverty

Had [foreign aid advocate Mickey Leland] given the issue some thought, he might have discovered that the proper question is not “Why are these people poor?” but rather “Why is anyone rich?” Man was born in poverty; it needs no explanation because it is simply the absence of wealth. What needs to be explained is how anyone ever beat poverty and became prosperous. A certain logic is missing from the simple-minded argument that the rich got that way by robbing the poor.

We needn’t have expected Leland and his colleagues in Congress to discover the truth for themselves. It was readily available to the most casual investigator and has been available for many years.

In the 1830s two Englishmen understood it: standing grief stricken at the grave of a child who had died of starvation, one of them, Richard Cobden, turned to his friend, John Bright, and said, “Come with me. There are in England women and children dying with hunger – hunger made by the laws. Come with me, and we will not rest until we repeal those laws.” In the next decade Cobden and Bright united the efforts of industrialists and laborers in a crusade to repeal the causes of starvation in England: the Corn Laws, which made grain imports artificially expensive. Their success brought a period of unprecedented prosperity to England.

Cobden and Bright understood the source of prosperity. Men begin with only their labor and nature-given materials. They have to apply their labor to rearrange the materials in order to produce things of value. That requires ingenuity. And ingenuity is clearly the more important of the two. In fact, it is ingenuity that turns nature-given materials into resources. It was ingenuity that turned worthless underground black gunk into valuable oil. It was ingenuity that turned sand into silicon. Nature, strictly speaking, does not provide resources; it provides materials. A resource is a product of man’s mind; a material stamped with man’s purpose.

As important as ingenuity is to the creation of wealth, it does not exist unconditionally. To think, to discover what they need and how to produce it, men must be free. They can’t create at the point of a gun.

~ Sheldon L. Richman, "Phony Benevolence," The Free Market, October 1989