|
MONTERREY,
Mexico -- Once again President George W. Bush
has demonstrated, in most distressing fashion,
two
of the least attractive hallmarks of his operating
style. One is his insistence on what he has criticized
in others as "fuzzy math." The other
is his "my way or the highway" attitude
toward all discussions of international policy.
What prompts this observation is the White House's
significant revision of the president's proposed
increase in US foreign aid, a plan that was outlined
just last week. Last week US officials said the
president was proposing to spend an additional
$5 billion over three years, raising total aid
during that period by about 15 percent. But the
other day, just before the president left Washington
for Monterrey to attend the International Conference
on Financing for Development, his aides upped
the ante. They announced that the administration
now
plans to increase the annual aid budget by 50
percent (from $10 billion yearly to $15 billion).
The increase
would be phased in over three years, they said,
and thereafter aid would remain at the higher
level.
Whichever
set of numbers proves to be the real one, however,
there are some things about them that must be remembered.
First is that they are only proposals; the actual
money will have to be appropriated by Congress, whatever
the president may propose. And, second, nobody in
Washington seems to regard this issue as an urgent
priority. Current plans call for beginning the phase-in
of the increase in fiscal year 2004 and not topping
out until fiscal year 2006.
Clearly,
many people regard even the more generous
Bush
proposal as too little and too
late. But of even greater concern, perhaps,
is what these proposals say about President
Bush's dogged commitment to unilateralism.
Whether US aid is to increase by 15 percent
temporarily, or 50 per cent permanently, that
decision-in the president's mind, at least-is
one that is to be made by the US and the US
alone. Development "cooperation?" "Partnership?" Forget
it. Whether the subject is development assistance
or global warming, the US under President George
W. Bush doesn't negotiate with other nations
to achieve consensus. It doesn't even consult
with them. It dictates the terms of its participation
and then sulks because people in other nations
resent its high-handed behavior.
One other critical point that needs to be
remembered: UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan
has said (and a panel of researchers has confirmed)
that if the international community is to meet
the goal agreed at the Millennium Summit two
years ago-reducing global poverty by half by
2015-official development assistance will have
to double. That is, it will have to go from
the current $50 billion a year to $100 billion.
The US, the world's only economic superpower,
is proposing to provide $5 billion of the additional
$50 billion that is needed. The Europeans say
they will increase their aid budget (which
is far more generous than the current US aid
budget) by about $9 billion. That leaves a
shortfall of $36 billion. Where is that money
supposed to come from? And can the world really
afford to turn its back on the Millennium Summit
goals, as it turned its back on the commitments
made 10 years ago at the Rio Earth Summit?
A few months from now, many of the world leaders
now gathering in Monterrey will be meeting
again, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(also known as Earth Summit II) in Johannesburg.
Will they once again sign their names to false
and empty promises? Or will they have to agree
(if only tacitly) to scale back the struggle
against global poverty because the rich countries
are unwilling to bear the cost? Either way,
this generation of leaders cannot expect history
to be kind to them.
|
