Trump's 'Fortress America' Benefits From Famine Relief

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/29/2017 05:33:00 PM
Actually, there is a selfish case for Trump providing food aid to us coloreds and/or Muslims.
It is obvious that American President Donald Trump is not especially fond of foreigners, especially the colored and/or Muslim variety (If you're both, then so much worse for you. That you're unlikely to buy Ivanka-brand jewelry seals the deal.) Americans are famously incurious about the rest of the world, and Trump is probably the worst of the lot. An avowed hater of the United Nations--why should his "America First" United States contribute to an avowedly internationalist organization--he probably didn't hear the news that there is a famine ongoing that's the worst since WWII according to UNICEF:
Famine is looming in north-east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen and beyond, as nearly 1.4 million children are at imminent risk of death from severe acute malnutrition this year. Some 22 million children are hungry, sick, displaced and out of school due to war, conflict and drought. They now face the risk of death from starvation, but also from preventable diseases like cholera and measles, which cause severe diarrhoea and dehydration.

And the risk of famine is not limited to these four countries. As violence, hunger and thirst force people to move within and across borders, malnutrition rates will continue to soar in neighbouring countries as well.

This crisis is largely human-made. Scorched earth tactics by conflicting parties are destroying crops and critical infrastructure like health facilities. Heavy fighting is forcing farmers to abandon their fields, while blocking humanitarian access to people in desperate need of food aid and clean water. As families flee their homes, children have no access to health and nutrition services, clean water, or adequate sanitation and hygiene – putting them at greater risk of malnutrition. Diseases are spreading rapidly in crowded sites for displaced people. And drought is further exacerbating food crises in parts of Africa, particularly Somalia and the Horn of Africa.
Despite claiming to be a "Christian" [sic], you can rest assured that Trump couldn't care less if 22 million colored people (and probably Muslim besides!) died. Maybe there would be fewer "terrorists" to worry about in the future. Exhibit A is the plan to radically defund US food aid in Trump's proposed 2017 US budget. Indeed, his budget chief gladly points this out:
Trump's proposed budget would "absolutely" cut programs that help some of the most vulnerable people on Earth, Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget director, told reporters last week. The budget would "spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home," he said.
However, there is a case to be made that not allowing these countries to collapse and provide a breeding ground for extremism actually makes sense. Edward Luce of the FT makes this argument:
Even by that yardstick, however, Mr Trump serves himself badly. Famine is a product of political failure. In both the Horn of Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa it is the result of civil wars in which the west has direct and indirect interests. Groups such as Isis, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda expand in such conditions. So, too, does the volume of refugees.
If the UN warning is anywhere close to correct, the flow of refugees to the west from Africa will dwarf the numbers that have been coming from Syria. The space for further radicalisation in Africa, the Middle East and Europe will only grow. This cannot be in America’s interests. By his own measures, Mr Trump should be doing his utmost to help things on the ground. Yet he will only act if he is forced to do so by others. 
It's not a particularly edifying spectacle, but Trump would likely have fewer colored people and/or Muslims [from Somalia...and Yemen too!] to worry about if his country continues to provide food aid and address catastrophes before they worsen and come to his shores in a couple of months or years' time. It's unlikely that he will have walled off the entire US coastline by then.

The irony is that foreign aid already is such a minuscule part of the US budget. Maybe the inordinately larger military buildup Trump is fantasizing about wouldn't be all that necessary if the United States actually had fewer enemies in this world?

David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said the roughly one-third cut in foreign aid endangered U.S. values and interests abroad.

"What’s more, the U.S. foreign assistance budget makes up a mere 1 percent of the federal budget - a tiny category of discretionary spending which saves lives and spreads goodwill around the world," he said.
Perhaps even a racist-protectionist-isolationist can understand that, but I am not holding my breath.