I’m outraged! I only now learned that in just four years the United States provided $175 billion in foreign aid to 16 European nations, including France, Italy and the UK!

It’s shocking, but it’s true!

A long time ago, there was this thing called World War II. It started about a year after a popular nationalist in Berlin declared, among other things, that he wanted to Make Austria German Always (MAGA). After his defeat in 1945, the nations of western and central Europe were devastated, with their cities in ruins, treasuries empty and economies in collapse. Millions of destitute and hungry refugees sought food and shelter. With Eastern Europe already in the grip of the Soviets’ massive Red Army, America’s democratic trading partners across the continent faced bankruptcy and the possible overthrow of their democratic governments.

So back in Washington, some hippie-Marxist, five-star general turned U.S. Army Chief of Staff and then Secretary of State named George C. Marshall concluded that American economic prosperity and national security required an enormous aid package to the nations of Europe. Passed by Congress and signed by President Truman, between 1948 and 1951 the United States spent $13.3 billion (roughly $175 billion in current dollars) on the European Recovery Plan (ERP). What became more commonly known as the “Marshall Plan” ultimately delivered essential financial assistance to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Apparently, the thinking behind this unprecedented effort is what philosophers call “enlightened self-interest.” As Marshall himself put it, the United States would do well by doing good. “The United States,” he said, “should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.” Failure to make those investments, Marshall understood, guaranteed the U.S. would have to spend far more on a much bigger military presence to counter the Soviets.

Even then, peace in Europe and prosperity at home and abroad required American military muscle and skilled diplomacy. When the USSR blockaded West Berlin in June 1948, a round-the-clock airlift of food and supplies kept over two million people in West Berlin fed and warm for over a year. And in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded. With its members’ shared commitment to mutual defense, the expansion of the Soviet bloc was prevented while Europe has enjoyed uninterrupted peace and wealth.

Seventy-five years later, the United States faces a new threat to its economic prosperity and national security. Across the globe, China is making massive investments in the developing world, much of it self-serving and predatory assistance designed to make its recipients dependent on Beijing. With the exceptions of the large outlays to aid Ukraine and Israel in 2023 and 2024, total U.S. foreign aid (of which USAID is only part) since the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has averaged roughly $50 billion a year, or under 1% of the entire federal budget. In comparison, the U.S. spent $840 billion on defense in FY 2024. Already being outspent by the Chinese in Asia, Africa and South America, an American policy of slashing its foreign aid expenditures would be a self-inflicted wound of epic proportions.

To put it another way, the United States can spend some money on foreign now or spend more on wars later. As General Jim Mattis, former head of U.S. Central Command and first Secretary of Defense famously explained in 2013, “

“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.”

And that would be truly outrageous.