Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The US piggy bank and Trump

There is a widespread myth that I'm sure many Trump voters accept without questioning, namely that ending US foreign aid would balance the budget. Last time I checked the total of US foreign aid equalled about 10% of the interest on the existing national debt. Further, all foreign aid is given in the perceived interests of the donor. The US' most generous cases of foreign aid, Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan, are only obvious examples. 

The United States was a net creditor nation from the 1920s to the Reagan era. Since then it has been a net debtor nation. 

On Jul 26, 2018, at 16:31, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

Donald Trump and the U.S. piggy bank

 

Duncan Cameron, July 3, 2018, http://rabble.ca/columnists/2018/07/donald-trump-and-us-piggy-bank

Justifying his imposition of tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, including Canada, Donald Trump angrily pointed to the rest of the world: "The United States has been taken advantage of for decades and decades… we're like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing and that ends."

 

It is hard to see how other countries have been robbing the American piggy bank and taking its savings. In fact, the U.S. takes in savings from other nations: it must borrow to make payments on what it owes abroad.

At the beginning of 2018, the U.S. owed the rest of the world about $7.7 trillion. This is the difference between U.S. investments abroad of $ 27.8 trillion and U.S. assets held by non-nationals of $35.5 trillion.

John Edward Philips  <http://human.cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/philips/>

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

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