Featuring
Christopher Bancroft Burnham, Chairman, Cambridge Global Capital
Bathsheba Crocker, Vice President, Humanitarian Programs & Policy, CARE
Sarah Rose, Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development
Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, Heritage Foundation
Jessica Trisko Darden, Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Moderator
Scott Morris, Senior Fellow and Director of the US Development Policy Initiative, Center for Global Development
When it comes to foreign aid, the United States is the largest bilateral donor in the world. Some of this aid goes to countries that are out of step with the United States on select policy issues. One clear demonstration of this is the significant amount of aid given to countries who frequently vote in opposition to the US position at the United Nations. Over the years, various US officials have decried this relationship and called for a closer link between US foreign aid and countries’ UN voting record. The Trump administration has recently raised the profile of this viewpoint, emphasizing its desire for US aid to support US interests—including at the United Nations.
US foreign assistance has always been a tool of foreign policy and has been used to influence UN votes for decades. But there are a range of opinions around the degree to which aid should be tied to UN votes, the implications of such a policy, and—more broadly—how US self-interest should be defined. Please join us for a lively discussion of viewpoints on these and other questions around the administration’s proposal to forge a closer connection between aid flows and UN votes.
