Trade, Not Aid

Kentucky -- American Policy is basically one of two things, aid or war, and sometimes both, but this was not always the case:

“Prior to 1863…American foreign policy was based mostly on the Washington/Jefferson ideology of commercial relations with all nations, entangling alliances with none. It was considered to be a virtueto remain neutral in disputes between two other countries.”¹

Anti-trade embargoes are a declaration of war. We are refusing goods to another nation, thus stopping the supply. That brings war. We fight the war, we crush our enemies, and then we rebuild them-with aid.

Every year we spend billions of dollars in foreign aid, while we are in massive debt around the world, and are running it up faster every day, and yet we have billions of dollars to throw around and give to other countries just because we want to.

America is 16 trillions of dollars in debt, to fix that problem Mr. President has begun something he calls “The Cut the Waste Program," cutting things like supporting the website of a group of park rangers who have a band called the Fiddling Foresters, and also the spending of millions of dollars on ink and paper to print things no one reads because it is already on the Internet.

However, we still spend billions of dollars on aid every year. If we want to cut the waste, we could do a good job of it by cutting the aid.

The job of the American government is to make this nation great, not other nations. If this nation is strong then the world is stronger because of it.

If we trade with other nations, we will make them and ourselves stronger. Relationships of trade are vibrant, living things, with both sides benefiting from the produce of the relationship.

Like a mill, in which water comes in and grain goes out, it becomes a productive society, building things and making things. Massive amounts of money shipped there become temptations for human nature to steal. While we recognize that not everyone who receives foreign aid abuses it, the money still belongs to America, not the world, while there is one person doing poorly here, we have no business nation building there.

Our job is to make this nation great, not someone else’s. And that will build a stronger, freer world

Trade, not aid, because trade is aid.

Andrew C. Abbott

Notes:

1: From an article: American Exceptionalism: From Gettysburg to Damascus by Thomas J. DiLorenzo on May 1, 2013.