U.S.-AID: Congress wants to cut lowest foreign aid request in memory

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 28 1996 (IPS) - Key Republican lawmakers have put Secretary of State Warren Christopher on notice that they will slash at least one billion dollars from the lowest foreign-aid request submitted by a president in memory.

Appearing before the powerful Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Wednesday, Christopher was told bluntly by Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Sonny Callahan that the 12.8 billion dollars requested by President Clinton for 1997 will be cut.

“You can convey to the president that, regretfully, we’re going to have to cut his request by at least a billion dollars,” Callahan told Christopher. He also suggested that the administration should consider reducing its aid allocations for key Mideast countries, notably Israel and Egypt, which together receive more than five billion dollars a year in U.S. aid.

But Christopher rejected that idea. Noting that recent terrorist incidents in Israel had put the three-year Israeli- Palestinian peace process in jeopardy, he said “it is the wrong time for us to pull back from support for the peace process, to pull back from support for those who are taking risks for peace, who are facing on a day-to-day basis the terrorism.”

Christopher’s appearance before Callahan’s subcommittee was supposed to kick off an admittedly uphill battle to get the administration’s 12.8 billion dollar foreign-aid request approved over the next six months. Fiscal year 1997 begins Oct 1, 1996.

The request represents a five-percent nominal increase over the 1996 foreign-aid budget, which was the lowest in real terms since the onset of the cold War 50 years ago. Christopher noted that the requested budget represents a 51 percent cut in aid in real terms since 1984, the bulk of which has come just in the last three years.

A further cut of one billion dollars would represent a cut of another eight percent in real terms and confirm Washington’s foreign-aid contribution as by far the lowest of 21 industrialised nations as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

“We have come to feel that the central lesson of this century is that America must lead,” Christopher told the subcommittee, adding that the administration’s request represented the minimum necessary to do so.

But Callahan, who proved a critical administration ally in the fight over the 1996 aid budget, was unmoved and complained that Clinton had a habit of making new aid commitments without the means to follow through. He cited in particular Clinton’s recent promise to provide 100 million dollars in anti-terrorism assistance for Israel.

“Every time the president goes on a trip now, I sit in front of my television… and wonder how much this is going to cost our committee,” he said, suggesting that, instead of promising new aid, Clinton should pass out copies of “Forrest Gump” which was written by one of Callahan’s constituents in Alabama.

He was especially pointed about the portion of the aid budget devoted to the Middle East, which has long claimed the biggest chunk of U.S. foreign assistance since the 1979 Camp David accords. For 1997, the administration has asked for 5.345 billion dollars for the region, in addition to supplemental requests for 1996 of 120 million dollars.

“By my staff’s calculation, that’s … more than 50 percent of the total foreign aid bill once the appropriations for (U.S. trade- promotion agencies) are deducted from the allocation,” he said.

“Isn’t it time to recognise that a cap has to be put on aid to this region?” he asked.

But other lawmakers jumped in to defend the Mideast aid allocation which is supported by the powerful Israel lobby on Capitol Hill. Most analysts believe that the allocations to Israel and Egypt are not likely to be reduced in an election year.

In addition to the five billion dollars for those two countries, the administration is proposing about 200 million dollars for the Palestinian Authority and 25 million dollars to help Jordan redeem its debt to the United States. Clinton is also asking Congress to appropriate 53 million dollars to a new Middle East Development Bank (MEDB), an initiative strongly backed by Washington despite objections from some of its European allies.

“I want to let you know that in these times of budget realities, that it’s not the time to be seriously committing 50 millions of dollars for any development anywhere in the world,” Callahan told Christopher Wednesday.

That remark could bode ill for a number of other priorities the administration had hoped to push through Congress this year, beginning with a 935-million-dollar request for the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides about six billion dollars in concessional assistance to the world’s poorest countries each year.

Because Washington lagged so badly in paying its contributions to IDA, other donors have set up a parallel fund of three billion dollars for 1997 from which U.S. companies will be barred from bidding on procurement contracts. The 935 million dollars Clinton has requested for next year is designed to clear up U.S. arrears.

Clinton is also asking for 1.1 billion dollars in aid for the states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 704 million dollars in development aid for sub-Saharan African countries, and 958 million dollars to the United Nations as part of a package designed to pay off 1.35 billion dollars in arrears to the world body over the next five years.

Apart from complaining about the proportion of aid devoted to the Middle East, Callahan did not indicate where he would seek cuts in the budget. At one point, however, he suggested that Haiti, to which Clinton has promised 100 million dollars this year, “is not a successful foreign venture.”

After meetings here last week, Haiti’s new president, Rene Preval, agreed to resume negotiations on implementing a U.S.- backed economic reform programme which includes privatisation of major industries and civil service reforms that could lay off thousands in a country that already suffers from 70 percent unemployment.

“Tell the president to get off that 100 million dollars,” he told Christopher.