From the following website:
http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/charity.html#USAWe have heard that the USA ties its aid, a practice that can ruin local economies and is used to benefit America's allies such as Israel, rather than help the poor. This pours fuel on to a fire of anti-Americanism that burns throughout the educated world, and the facts above are summarized in the directed book, "
Why do People Hate America?" by Davies & Sardar:
“[Americans] are regularly told by politicians and the media, that America is the world's most generous nation. This is one of the most conventional pieces of 'knowledgeable ignorance'. According to the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US gave between $6 and $15 billion in foreign aid in the period between 1995 and 1999. In absolute terms, Japan gives more than the US, between $9 and $15 billion in the same period. But the absolute figures are less significant than the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP, or national wealth) that a country devotes to foreign aid. On that league table, the US ranks twenty-second of the 22 most developed nations. As former President Jimmy Carter commented: 'We are the stingiest nation of all'. Denmark is top of the table, giving 1.01% of GDP, while the US manages just 0.1%. The United Nations has long established the target of 0.7% GDP for development assistance, although only four countries actually achieve this: Denmark, 1.01%; Norway, 0.91%; the Netherlands, 0.79%; Sweden, 0.7%. Apart from being the least generous nation, the US is highly selective in who receives its aid. Over 50% of its aid budget is spent on middle-income countries in the Middle East, with Israel being the recipient of the largest single share.”
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Why do People Hate America?" by Davies & Sardar, p79
“US aid, which acquired an increasingly military flavour during the Regan years, is now concentrated on a relatively small number of countries of special political importance.”
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Introduction to International Politics" by Heater & Berridge, p80
Source: The Economist
2Comparing USA aid to that of European countries is not in itself a simple task. The American people are actually no less generous than those of other developed countries. By comparing aid as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) you measure the amount of aid that is given by individuals. On this scale, Americans look angelic, giving twice as much as Britons or Canadians. By comparing aid as a fraction of Gross National Income (GNI) as the studies on this page has done, you combine the generosity of the government and individuals. Europeans pay higher taxes to their governments, who in turn operate as welfare states, doing much charitable work
2. For this reason, European governments always appear more generous in league tables compared to American governments, which is decidedly not a welfare state. American citizens give no less than others, according to The Economist, "the extra percentage point of its GDP that individuals deposit in rattling tins hardly reflects the much lighter taxes they pay"
2. American citizens give more, but the government does so much less that the country as a whole looks miserly. It would not be right to blame the citizens for this, but the lack of a socially-minded government.
