January 7, 2005 --
ACCORDING to New York Times colum nist Nicholas Kristof, America is a
land of "penny pinchers" who are not sufficiently generous to the needy
in the rest of the world. Citing our relatively low level of per-capita
official governmental foreign aid, he refuses to take issue with the
recent charge by a U.N. official that we are "stingy."
Mr. Kristof has his facts wrong.
Government-to-government foreign-development assistance, usually
called "foreign aid" is only a tiny part of the massive American
generosity to the peoples of the Third World. Kristof claims that our
per-capita daily contribution of only 15 cents in foreign aid is lower
than that of 22 other nations. He dismisses private philanthropy as only
generating an additional six cents per day, per capita, still leaving us
in last place.
But Americans are, in fact, very generous. Last year, we donated more
than $240 billion to charity — about $800 per person, or in Mr.
Kristof's terms, almost $2.19 per day, per person. Kristof only counts
the 2 percent of that sum that goes directly for earmarked donations for
foreign philanthropy. He disregards the vast amount of money spent to
help the Third World by American charitable, religious and philanthropic
organizations that are not exclusively dedicated to foreign activity.
Nor does he include any mention of the altruistic volunteer work by
Americans that benefits the needy throughout the world.
For example, 60 percent of all charitable private donations in the
U.S. go to churches and religious groups. A large part of this money
goes overseas, much of it to the Third World. In addition, much of the
money Americans give to educational charities (7 percent of total
contributions) winds up funding scholarships for foreign students. Funds
given to promote health care (7 percent), human resources (9 percent)
and the environment (3 percent) also find their way overseas. No other
nation comes close to our total private-sector philanthropic giving.
But our government itself is far from deserving the appellation
"stingy." We have catalyzed $150 billion in private investment overseas,
largely in Third World nations, through the efforts of the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a public agency whose board is
appointed by the president.
Our trade deficit with the rest of the world of $500 billion, a fifth
of it with China, creates jobs and fights poverty throughout the world.
By opening our markets to Third World trade more than any other nation,
we create far, far more wealth in poor countries than all the
governmental foreign aid in the world put together. The U.S. grants
free-trade status to Mexico, one of the largest Third World nations, and
is extending the same status to the Caribbean, Central America and
Chile. Eventually, we plan to open our markets to imports from all of
South America. We even passed a special exemption from our import quotas
for textiles from Africa to foster jobs in that beleaguered nation. And
we have led the way in granting hundreds of billions of debt relief to
the world's poorest nations, much of it lent by American banks and the
U.S. government.