Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Romney Urges Attaching Certain Strings to Foreign Aid
This past Tuesday both presidential candidates spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York (link). Mitt Romney laid out the broad outlines of his plan to foster work opportunities and free enterprise in developing nations. Thoughts? Should Romney have a plan to help other nations while his own is having employment problems?
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I feel as though we can relate this article to another recent post on the blog about Obama's foreign policy and how critical of a role it will play in the election. It is obviously important to have a foreign policy and to come up with ways that will better the U.S. internationally, however I would still argue that this issue will be further down the list of deciding factors for voters.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, looking at Romney's plans specifically, I think it is easy to point a finger at and question him just as Abby does about taking care of issues here in the U.S. first. However, I view these ideas as building blocks for the future that could benefit us down the road. There is no doubt that Romney is aware of the domestic problems we have here, and I would imagine if he does not have his priorities straight when it comes to his policies, the voters will let him know.
I feel a bit bias commenting on this because I am personally a strong believer in the growth of globalization and the importance of foreign policy (I chose to write my SIP about it). I think the future of business will be very internationally integrated. I personally believe by investing in international growth opportunities, we will be growth better ties with the rest of the world. Though we may be loosing some jobs to nations with lower wages, once that country starts to develop they will also bring jobs to the United States. I am going to use China as an example. U.S. companies opened up manufacturing plants in South China because of cheap labor. Once China’s economy grew so did their interest and familiarity with the United States. Today they hold the largest portion of our nation’s debt. Freeing enterprises with developing nations is not only an issue of loosing job, but as a very strong part of the U.S.’s influence in the world.
ReplyDeleteThe percentage of US budget that goes into foreign aid is around 1%. On a large scale, the sum that is given away is barely going to affect the unemployment policies of the politicians. However, many Americans think foreign aid makes up a big portion of the budget, and hence Romney is trying to influence voters by his foreign policies. But I agree with Ajminch that at present moment foreign aid won't be a top voting criteria for the voters.
ReplyDeleteChina is one thing^^, but in terms of most of the developing world, I would stipulate that Romney was talking moreover about the Middle East. Thinking with an economist framework, any aid to foreign nations stands as a long term investment in the eyes of American venture capitalists. Any capital stimulus is not purely altruistic as we only give, in the hopes of some return later on.
ReplyDeleteThe Middle East does not have the greatest commodity lottery, as we know oil to be one of their only/main exports. It is also impossible to quantify what our involvement in the area garners as a return from this. If we put the same amount of money into the American education system, that we do to 'foster democracy' in the desert--I shutter to think of how far we could have progressed.