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The Weekly GAB Friday, September 2, 2016
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition | www.usglc.org
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USGLC in the News

THE UNION LEADER
UNH Forum Covers America's Leadership Role in the World |

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Kimberley Haas

ISIS, the global economy and immigration were all subjects covered
during a forum held at the University of New Hampshire Monday. Hosted
by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, keynote speakers included a
retired Navy admiral, the senior director of global government affairs
at Wal-Mart and U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. All agreed it will
take both governments and businesses to lift nations out of conflict
in order establish and protect peace.

Campaign 2016

THE WASHINGTON POST

What the World Could Lose in America's Presidential Election |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=uvWy3k6bk_rmgNmytK_Dsg

Fred Hiatt

The presidential election could be crucial to the future of democracy,
and not just in the United States. The global impact of a Donald Trump
presidency would be disastrous. But even a Hillary Clinton win
won't help reverse the worldwide retrenchment in democracy and
human rights unless she brings a change in policy from the current
administration.

THE DENVER POST
Where Do Clinton and Trump Stand on U.S. Intervention? |

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Ved Nanda

In the current election cycle, the debate on this vital question is
especially focused on America's military interventions -
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and
hesitation in Syria - which provide some indicators for
reflection. Donald Trump is usually described as a champion of
non-intervention and Hillary Clinton the opposite.

THE HUFFINGTON POST

Joe Arpaio: 'What Difference Does It Make' Who Pays for
Trump's Border Wall? |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=_tdwSURJXg6crpynqhkxSg

Igor Bobic

Sheriff Joe Arpaio... said he's not bothered by the GOP
nominee's failure to discuss payment for his proposed border
wall... with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Arpaio said in
an interview on CNN. "If Mexico doesn't pay for it, they
do get foreign aid. Maybe we can deduct the price from the foreign
aid."... Realistic outside estimates have pegged the [wall]
bill at $25 billion. In comparison, U.S. foreign aid to Mexico in the
next fiscal year is projected to be about $130 million ? a
meager sum compared to the billions it would take to build a wall.

TIME
Henry Kissinger and George Shultz Mull Hillary Clinton Endorsement |

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Tessa Berenson

Foreign policy gurus Henry Kissinger and George Shultz are considering
a joint endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Politico reports that Shultz,
former Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, said he will
not be endorsing Trump and that he and Kissinger have discussed
publicly backing Clinton. "We are going to do it
together," Shultz told Politico of a possible joint endorsement.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Clinton Slams Trump as a Dangerous Isolationist in American Legion
Speech |

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Anne Gearan

Democrat Hillary Clinton scoffed at the capabilities and worldview of
Republican opponent Donald Trump on Wednesday, including his hasty
trip to Mexico, as she courted support from veterans and conservatives
concerned about national security. The speech, while repeating
Clinton's frequent criticisms that Trump's populist foreign policy
ideas are dangerous and unworkable, went further in establishing her
own position as an internationalist who is to his political right on
the issue of overseas engagement.

Who's in the News

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
U.S. Must Stand Strong for Allies and Principles

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Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA)

As members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, we've
fought to prioritize funding for programs that will help bring peace
and strengthen deterrence in these unstable times. Our bipartisan
support for the European Reassurance Initiative, the NATO Security
Investment Program, international security assistance, and
humanitarian assistance programs are just a few examples of how our
work in Congress is reinforcing our national security interests and
honoring our commitments to our allies.

Development & Diplomacy

THE WASHINGTON POST
Colombian Peace Deal Could Mark Rare Victory for U.S. Diplomacy |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=dS-LFW_63x5E0-atmGdw8g

Nick Miroff

In an era of frustrating, if not failed, U.S. policy interventions
abroad, the Colombian peace deal announced last week offers the
possibility of a rare victory for American diplomacy. "This is a
transformational moment for our hemisphere," Bernard Aronson,
the U.S. envoy to the peace talks, said in an interview. "It is
a final repudiation of political violence as a means of changing
governments."

THE HILL
A Great America Deserves a Great International Food Aid Policy |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=vxGHkyxjxAR0zkQZgR8ZXw

Ryan Nabil, Stephanie Mercier, and Vincent H. Smith

The United States currently has a major leadership role in global
emergency food aid programs even though the government spends less
than 0.05 percent of the federal budget on such food aid programs.
U.S. food aid programs are important for humanitarian reasons but they
also make a critical contribution to US foreign policy by creating
good will and sustaining America's political credibility in many
developing countries.

CQ ROLL CALL
[See below for full text]
Foreign Aid 'Barnacles' Impede Effectiveness, Experts Say |
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=QpqguXmtXi0mMJbU1VHeAQ

Rachel Oswald

Foreign aid advocates, buoyed by modest legislative successes this
summer, are now pushing lawmakers to consider the most comprehensive
overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance programs in 30 years. The foreign
aid budget, still based on Cold War rationale, has become encrusted
with outmoded policy and spending requirements that harken back to a
time when the Soviet Union was the No. 1 threat and supporting U.S.
private businesses was a widely accepted goal of foreign assistance.

Politics & Foreign Policy

THE WASHINGTON POST
Zika Outbreaks Most Likely to Hit Eight Countries in Asia, Africa |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=id7qvHaeQHhBOYNeJUGErA

Lena H. Sun

The worsening Zika outbreak in Singapore and its potential to spread
elsewhere in Asia and beyond is rapidly raising alarms among health
experts. Singapore has at least 151 confirmed cases, authorities
reported Thursday, with two involving pregnant women. Neighboring
Malaysia also confirmed that a 58-year-old woman who recently visited
her Zika-infected daughter in Singapore had been diagnosed with the
disease.

USA TODAY
First U.S. Commercial Flight in 5 Decades Lands in Cuba |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=Z0XrCieOLbUhwTKCa0uZSg

Alan Gomez

The flight from Fort Lauderdale to this city in central Cuba on
Wednesday morning took only 51 minutes, but it represented a major
step in ending decades of isolation between communist Cuba and the
United States. JetBlue Flight 387 was the first regularly scheduled
commercial flight between the Cold War foes in 55 years, the latest
example of how the two countries are normalizing relations.

THE WASHINGTON POST
India and U.S. Deepen Defense Ties With Landmark Agreement |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=DKFOmJh7mN9Wd29U6Bs9jA

Rama Lakshmi

After nearly a decade of painstaking discussions, India and the United
States signed on Tuesday a landmark defense agreement that will
increase the military cooperation between two of the world's
largest democracies. The agreement was finalized during a visit by
Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar to Washington, and it was
touted as an indication of deeper defense ties between the two nations
in an increasingly tense part of the world.

CQ ROLL CALL
Foreign Aid 'Barnacles' Impede Effectiveness, Experts Say |
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=5R075K3GeEqy6_ND3D_cGg

Rachel Oswald
September 1, 2016

Foreign aid advocates, buoyed by modest legislative successes this
summer, are now pushing lawmakers to consider the most comprehensive
overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance programs in 30 years.

The foreign aid budget, still based on Cold War rationale, has become
encrusted with outmoded policy and spending requirements that harken
back to a time when the Soviet Union was the No. 1 threat and
supporting U.S. private businesses was a widely accepted goal of
foreign assistance.

Congress has fallen into the habit of renewing foreign aid programs
with little evidence they work - a fact that frustrates Senate
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, who has discussed the need to
pass a new foreign assistance authorization bill. The timeline for the
bill is unclear, and it could be kicked into the next Congress.

But the committee's top Democrat, Benjamin L. Cardin of
Maryland, who could hold the Foreign Relations gavel if Democrats win
control of the Senate in November, supports Corker's goals.

"Our foreign aid policies today seem mired in a Cold War mindset
that values buying friends in the developing world over establishing
the right environment for foreign economic growth to occur,"
Corker, R-Tenn., said at a July hearing on the efficacy of U.S.
assistance to developing nations.

The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (PL 87-195) has been updated multiple
times but the last time Congress passed a comprehensive
reauthorization measure was 1985. Because so much time has passed, a
lot of language remains in the law that analysts say no longer makes
sense for the post-Cold War and post-Sept. 11 world.

"There are still plenty of Cold War barnacles in the Foreign
Assistance Act that are frankly embarrassing," said Diana
Ohlbaum, a former senior staffer on the House Foreign Affairs
Committee under then-Chairman Howard L. Berman, D-Calif. Ohlbaum led
the effort to produce in late 2010 a comprehensive foreign assistance
overhaul bill that failed to get out of committee after Republicans
took back the House in elections that year.

Cold War Barnacles

Particularly egregious in Ohlbaum's eyes is a restriction in the
law that prohibits any U.S. aid going to a nation that is
"controlled by the international Communist conspiracy."

The State Department exercised its prerogative to remove China and
Vietnam from that list years ago, but the Communist conspiracy
language still remains on the books and is a source of embarrassment,
says Ohlbaum.

Congress today funds security and economic assistance to Vietnam and
democracy, human rights, rule of law and Tibetan programs in China.

U.S.-funded democracy promotion and broadcasting programs in Cuba are
another Cold War-relic, experts say.

From fiscal 1984 through fiscal 2015, Congress provided nearly $800
million for broadcasting to Cuba, which covers the Radio and TV Marti
news programs, according to the Congressional Research Service. The
programs, which air anti-Castro viewpoints, have had a questionable
impact on Cuban civil society, in part because Havana routinely blocks
their signals.

That hasn't stopped lawmakers from spending approximately $30
million annually for the programs. House appropriators are so wedded
to the idea of maintaining anti-Castro programming that they included
a provision in the fiscal 2017 foreign aid spending bill (HR 5912) to
explicitly block an Obama administration plan to turn the Office of
Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees Radio and TV Marti, into an
independent grantee organization that would also carry out
broadcasting programs in the greater Latin American and Caribbean
region.

"That is still a political football," said Ohlbaum, now an
independent consultant, of the advocacy around the Cuba democracy
programming. "It is not strictly partisan. It is about the
lobbying weight of the Cuban-American community."

Another sore thumb for advocates of efficiency is the U.S. Agency for
International Development-administered Food for Peace Program, which
provides U.S. food commodities to communities and organizations
abroad, either for direct distribution or for sale to fund local
development initiatives. While the program, which dates back to the
1950s, is overseen by the Agriculture committees and is authorized in
the multi-year farm bill, the House Foreign Affairs panel also has a
jurisdictional role.

The program is a clear example of tied aid, or foreign assistance
funding that must be spent on organizations and businesses from the
donor country that in turn do work abroad.

The Food for Peace program, which averages about $1.9 billion
annually, is hamstrung by congressional requirements, which include
mandating food be purchased from U.S. farmers and shipped mostly by
U.S.-flagged vessels. In practice, these requirements have suppressed
the development of sustainable agriculture markets in Africa and
slowed food delivery to communities experiencing starvation and
malnutrition in faraway corners of the world.

"In general, the idea of tied aid is wonderful for domestic
constituencies but it shouldn't be called foreign aid, it should
be called domestic constituency aid," said Nicholas Eberstadt,
an expert on economic development and foreign aid at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute.

Eric Muñoz, a senior policy adviser with the anti-poverty organization
Oxfam America, wants to protect money for food aid, but he and other
advocates want it spent smarter.

"This program is one that has been devised in some ways to
benefit American private interests as much as it has been to feed
hungry people and we really need to see that stopped," Muñoz
said. "The fact that the Food for Peace Act is incorporated as
part of the Farm Bill demonstrates that there is a strong interest in
seeing that program linked to U.S. domestic interests including farm
interests but also shipping interests."

Moving to Evidence-Based Approach

Foreign aid advocates were delighted earlier this summer with the
congressional passage of a law (PL 114-191) that requires U.S.
agencies to publish performance data, contracts and other detailed
information on their foreign aid programs.They hope the law will bring
more accountability to U.S. foreign assistance. However, some
development professionals are skeptical Congress can ever bring itself
to defund pet projects, regardless of what the evidence reveals.

Steve Bucci, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, thinks it's
likely that lawmakers will start hacking at programs they don't like.
But years of partisan wrestling around perennial aid issues like
family planning and climate change have left Democrats and Republicans
well-equipped to defend their favored projects.

"I think the two sides are already pretty entrenched to defend
what they like and attack what they don't like on both sides of
the aisle," said Bucci, who formerly worked on Iraqi security
assistance issues during the George W. Bush administration.

Lester Munson, former Senate Foreign Relations staff director under
Corker, defended the aid transparency law, saying it will have an
impact far beyond Congress.

"The audience for transparency is not just the few members and
staff who are working directly on the issues. It's for
advocates, it's for professionals who work in the field,
it's for reporters," said Munson, a former deputy
assistant administrator with USAID, now with the lobbying firm BGR.
"What you'll ultimately produce with more transparency and
accountability is a better conversation . . . .about these issues and
what's the best way to do things."

Casey Dunning, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Global
Development, says she recognizes that even with the "best, most
indisputable evidence in the world," lawmakers may still decide
to pursue their own differing agendas.

At the same, Dunning, who specializes in aid effectiveness, says she
believes there is a congressional appetite for moving forward with
common-sense foreign aid reform, as evidenced by passage this year of
a new food security law (PL 114-195) that authorizes USAID for the
first time to provide cash transfers to local and regional governments
for the purchase of emergency food aid. Another example is a law (PL
114-121) cleared by Congress in February that codifies the
administration's Power Africa program, which seeks to spread
electricity in sub-Saharan Africa through more public-private
initiatives.

"There is a moment for foreign aid right now," Dunning
said. "If you look at all of the issues out there, I think
foreign aid and development is one where you can clearly say there has
been some really interesting bipartisan work being done."

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