Two articles from MEMO.  Plus notes and links on US aid and on the poorest nations.

Uncredited cartoon, MEMO

Trump threatens to cut aid to all countries over UN Jerusalem vote

Trump’s comments came after Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, sent threatening letters to UN member states, urging them to vote against the motion.

By MEMO
December 20, 2017

US President Donald Trump has threatened to cut aid to countries that vote in favour of a draft UN resolution condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Trump said at the White House on Wednesday the US would be “watching those votes” in the General Assembly.

Reuters news agency quoted Trump as saying:

They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care

The UN General Assembly will hold an emergency session on Thursday to vote on the controversial US decision.

The motion is expected to pass easily in the 193-member UN body, but it will be non-binding.

Ms Haley was named Nimrata Randhawa by her parents but changed it later. She (above on Trump’s left) became Republican governor of South Carolina before being plucked by Pres. Trump to be UN ambassador.

Trump’s comments came after Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, sent threatening letters to UN member states, urging them to vote against the motion.

Read: We are all to blame for Trump’s decision on Jerusalem

Haley wrote,

“The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us. Thank you for your consideration, and please do not hesitate to contact my team with any questions or concerns.

“As you know, the General Assembly is considering a resolution about President Trump’s recent decision on Jerusalem. As you consider your vote, I encourage you to know the president and the US take this vote personally.”

The UN General Assembly is set to meet tomorrow at 3pm GMT, for an emergency discussion on Jerusalem. Turkey and Yemen requested the meeting after the US vetoed an Egyptian-sponsored draft resolution at the UN Security Council, which was backed by all 14 other council members.

Trump is a bully, the UN must stand up to him

By MEMO
December 21, 2017

The torment of waking up to a Trump presidency has been described by some American’s as a glitch in the matrix; of being transported to a parallel universe in which a loutish red-haired charlatan, a bully accused of being a serial abuser of women – while bragging that as a famous man he can get away with anything – becomes the president of the United States.

Wielding power in a manner devoid of compassion and decency is alien to narcissist Trump. Power to the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump is a tool to bully, humiliate and coerce others into doing things which they would never do.

It comes as no surprise then to see President Trump take the unprecedented step of threatening to cut US funding to countries that oppose his decision to recogniseJerusalem as Israel’s capital in a UN vote today. The threat is Weinsteinian in its depravity. One imagines Trump saying to himself: If you want me to use my power and wealth to help you, then you need to humiliate yourself by performing demeaning political favours, which no self-respecting country would ever debase themselves to doing.

In the characteristically simpleton parallel universe that Trump inhabits, the logic is straightforward:    “They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

The reality of course is very different. US aid is not a gift bestowed by the president to demonstrate American benevolence to impoverished nations. The main purpose of aid is the advancement of national self-interest. Aid is an instrument of power, deployed by powerful states to carry influence amongst weaker states.

According to a former State Department official and aid expert Carol Lancaster modern US aid originated in Cold War geopolitics. “The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe,” the Council on Foreign Relations points out, “was designed to blunt the influence of rising Communist political forces on the continent. National security concerns have continued to drive US assistance policy, aiming to provide stability in conflicted regions, bolster allies, promote democracy, or contribute to counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts abroad.”

Who are the recipients of the $49 billion (1.3 per cent of the federal budget) distributed by the US: with $3.1 billion Israel is far and away the biggest recipient of US aid followed by Egypt which receives $1.5 billion. In fact a number of Arab and Muslim majority countries receive significant amounts of aid from the US to fund a complex stew of programmes that include promoting liberal values to security and counterterrorism.

Reflecting the close relation between US aid and US power is the significant increase to the budget of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. During the 1990s aid levels were cut to barely half of what they are today, falling to less than $20 billion in 1997, or 0.8 per cent of the overall budget. The terrorist attack on the US, however, prompted the Bush administration to embark on a “crusade” armed with the world’s largest military arsenal and an aid budget that that would be the envy of any superpower in world history determined to win political favour using financial bribes.

If Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, then Washington is Bolivia’s capital

The story of aid is not as straightforward as Trump would like it to be. Foreign aid in actual fact provides massive financial gains for donor countries. What poor countries received through aid is minuscule compared to the vast sums that are extracted by affluent Western capitals. The sustained and significant outflows from the developing countries since the eighties have topped $16.3 trillion. To put it another way, the outflow of wealth from developing nations over the intervening period equals the GDP of the US.

Foreign aid is part of a complex global structure in which donors and recipients clearly recognise the mutual benefit of having a means to exchange favours under the guise of the redistribution of wealth. This is one of the main reasons why western governments are reluctant to reduce the aid budget despite pressure from large sections of society. As with much of what Trump has done since moving into the White House, this unprecedented move, one expects, will work against him.

Despite what Trump may think, aid has already bought the US untold political favours and no self-respecting government, however poor, will allow themselves to be bullied into thinking they are a basket case in need of US generosity. If Trump’s bulling tactic does anything of significance, it should awaken a sense of national pride amongst recipients of US aid.

“No honourable state would bow to such pressure,” said the Foreign Minister of Turkey – a co-sponsor of the UN vote – Mevlut Cavusoglu. “The world has changed. The belief that ‘I am strong therefore I am right’ has changed. The world today is revolting against injustices.”

Others have denounced the threat saying “states resort to such blatant bullying only when they know they do not have a moral or legal argument to convince others.” Even a senior western diplomat, described it as “poor tactics” but not one which is “going to win any votes in the General Assembly or the Security Council”. A senior European diplomat agreed Haley was unlikely to sway many UN states.

Americans  attend a demonstration against US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, at the Times Square in New York City, US on 8 December 2017.  Photo by Atılgan Özdil / Anadolu Agency

US Congress has also called Trump on his bluff, with condemnations from key Democratic lawmakers who have poured water over the idea that Congress would allow him to carry out such an unprecedented threat. No pragmatic US politician would wish to play the aid card, as Trump has done, over an issue like Jerusalem. Not least because the draft resolution reaffirms numerous Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including requirements that the city’s final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Not to mention of course that the resolution had been US policy over five decades.

Today’s vote will be a defining moment for the international community, and more so for the Arab Gulf states allied to the Trump administration. It is not just a vote over the fate of Jerusalem and the millions of Palestinians suffering under the brutal Israeli occupation. The 193 members of the General Assembly are being asked to choose what kind of politics they want on the playground of the international stage.

Are they going to reward a bully who challenges basic decency and forever be held hostage to their cowardice or stand up to the bully as everyone should.

NOTES AND LINKS

US Foreign Aid in 2016

Only two of the 25 poorest countries, Afghanistan and Uganda, are on the Forbes list of countries receiving the most foreign aid. If the $3.100,000,000 given to the USA were divvied up and invested in some of the poorer nations that could end the refugee problem overnight.

It’s notable how few of the countries in which the USA has intervened, openly or secretly, especially in South America, have received any sort of compensation. The GDP of the largest beneficiary of UA AID is $318.7 billion cf those below.

The 25 poorest countries in the world

The analysis comes from by Global Finance Magazine. poorest nations at top.

By Barbara Tasch, Business Insider.
April 2016

1. Central African Republic — GDP per capita: $639 (£445)

2. Democratic Republic of Congo — GDP per capita: $753 (£525)

3. Malawi — GDP per capita: $819 (£572)

4. Liberia — GDP per capita: $934 (£652)

5. Burundi — GDP per capita: $951 (£662)

6. Niger — GDP per capita: $1069 (£744)

7. Mozambique — GDP per capita: $1,208 (£841)

8. Eritrea — GDP per capita: $1,210 (£842)

9. Guinea — GDP per capita: $1,388 (£966)

10. Madagascar — GDP per capita: $1,477 (£1,028)

14. Kiribati — GDP per capita: $1,640 (£1,142)

Kiribati is an island republic in the Central Pacific
with a population of c. 100,000

15. Ethiopia — GDP per capita: $1,656 (£1,153)

 16. Comoros — GDP per capita: $1,735 (£1,208)

Comoros is an island in the southern ocean. The people are of mixed African and Arab descent

17. Rwanda — GDP per capita: $1,782 (£1,241)

18. Burkina Faso — GDP per capita: $1,824 (£1,270)

Burkina Faso, formerly, if briefly , known as Upper Volta is a landlocked country in W. Africa

19. Uganda — GDP per capita: £1,836 (£1,278)

20. Haiti — GDP per capita: $1,846 (£1,285)

21. Gambia — GDP per capita: $1,849 (£1,287)

22. Solomon Islands — GDP per capita: $1,877 (£1,307)

The Solomon Islands make up an archipelago in the southern ocean near East Timor. They are inhabited by Melanesians, a black population descended from Africans