Press Release
March 5, 2007

As President Bush tours Latin America, he’s likely to claim that his administration has doubled foreign assistance to the region (1). There is an increase, but’s it’s wise to examine that claim carefully. According to Latin America Working Group Education Fund director Lisa Haugaard, “Neither the Bush nor the Clinton Administration has done enough to provide the kinds of aid to Latin America that really wins friends and influences people. That kind of aid is disaster relief, microcredit, support for education and health, HIV/AIDs, rural development, humanitarian aid for refugees and internally displaced persons—generous aid that helps real people. As Mr. Bush looks around in bemusement as to why he isn’t welcomed with open arms in Latin America, he might start looking at his own aid budget. But he should do that only after he examines his record on respect for international human rights standards and his claim of a U.S. right to wage preemptive war—issues with real resonance in Latin America.”

Let’s take a look at the numbers.

1. An accounting gimmick. The administration is using the baseline year of 2001 (the last year for which the Clinton Administration was responsible), saying that aid has doubled since 2001. The FY2001 foreign operations budget—approximately $870 million--is artificially low by over $400 million due to an accounting gimmick. The Clinton Administration initiated Plan Colombia with a special two-year funding of $874.4 million which was appropriated in FY2000 but covered 2000-01. FY2001 only included an additional $48 million for Colombia. So it would be more accurate to average this out to about $461 million per year, making the FY2001 total $413 million more, meaning aid to Latin America was $1.28 billion for the baseline year. Starting from that more accurate figure, you can say that aid to Latin America has increased by one-third.

2. Much of the aid is military aid or hard-side counternarcotics aid. When the President touts his foreign aid to Latin America, the perception may be that this is all disaster relief, aid for poor communities, health, education and humanitarian aid for refugees. However, nearly half of U.S. assistance to Latin America is military aid and hardside counternarcotics assistance, much of it concentrated in Colombia, and to a lesser extent, in other Andean nations. The FY07 request, for example, included $849.78 million in military/police aid vs. $1.00056 billion in economic assistance (note that these figures includes the defense as well as foreign operations budget: see http://www.ciponline.org/facts/country.htm).

3. The increased economic aid is concentrated in a handful of countries. The real increase in economic aid to Latin America from the Bush Administration is in the Millennium Challenge Account and the HIV/AIDs programs. This does represent a significant investment. However, these programs are concentrated in only a handful of countries. Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have signed Millennium Challenge compacts, and Paraguay has received a small “threshold” compact. Guyana and Haiti receive the special HIV/AIDs funding. Separately from these programs, Colombia, as under the Clinton Administration, continues to receive large sums of largely military/counternarcotics aid.

4. Millennium challenge countries are seeing other aid programs cut. While the Bush Administration promised that Millennium Challenge compacts would supplement existing aid, in fact all countries in Latin America receiving Millennium Challenge compacts are seeing their traditional development assistance accounts slashed – development assistance, Child Survival & Health, and Economic Support Funds – in the administration’s FY08 budget request. See chart below.

DA -Development Assistance
CSH - Child Survival and Health
ESF - Economic Support Funds

5. Aid has stagnated in four of the countries President Bush is visiting. In the four countries besides Colombia that President Bush is visiting, aid has stagnated from FY2001 through FY2007.

See: http://www.ciponline.org/facts/country.htm

6. The Bush Administration has slashed economic aid to two of the countries he is visiting in the FY08 request; the others are maintained at approximately the same level.

7. Child Survival & Health & Development Assistance programs have seen funding cut from FY2001 to FY2008. These programs, which would be among those perceived as expressing U.S. generosity, do not fare so well in the FY2001 to FY2008 comparison.

8. Despite promises of a reorientation of U.S. aid to Colombia, the Colombia aid package proposed for FY2008, and the policies behind this aid, remain almost identical. The FY08 budget request for Colombia remains 76 percent military and hard-side counternarcotics assistance, based upon the same failed strategy of aerial spraying.

1. The Administration’s “Function 150” budget document claims that “Foreign assistance for Latin America has nearly doubled since the start of this Administration, rising from $862 million in FY01 to $1.6 billion in FY08.”