The Disinterest In Foreign Aid: An Appraisal

In recent years U. S. foreign appropriations have featured annual reductions which the authors feel reveal what is expected to be a discernible trend for the next few years and a very real manifestation of a newly‐expressed disinterest in foreign aid. The reasoning underlying this altered attitude toward foreign aid is examined in relation to the U. S. balance‐of‐payments, the domestic inflation problem, and private enterprise impetus. Many revisions have been made in the administration of foreign aid to insure a U. S. origin for the real resources imported by the aid receiving country. However, these failed to curb our balance‐of‐payments problems as well as failed to correct the severe lag in export volume. In an attempt to mitigate domestic inflation, reductions were made in foreign aid appropriations, and preliminary calculations again show this policy to have been ineffective. The most recent disinterest in foreign aid has been generated by those who examined possible alternatives to foreign aid, in particular, the emphasis on private enterprise assuming a more active aid‐type role. In summary, the authors advise that this new disinterest has reached proportions sufficient to insure some definite changes in the modus operandi of foreign aid.