USAid

[jon-nyc]

Don’t know enough to be certain, but this may be right.

The usefulness of USAID spending in Africa - which mostly went to public health issues & is a tiny fraction of the federal budget - was in its generation of substantial goodwill & pro-America feeling on a continent that is already a geopolitical battlefield. We are competing against everyone from Islamist terrorists to the Russians & Chinese. And we were holding our own, despite the fact that China has invested far more heavily. If anything, we should've kept the health spending & added substantial infrastructure funding.

Ask yourself why the Chinese are spending so much time & money building influence in Africa if it is just a useless backwater? Hint: those rare earth minerals come from somewhere.

[89th]

JFK knew... USAID was first a defense strategy, and second a humanitarian effort.