This week U.S. President George W. Bush meets in Monterrey, Mexico with 50 other heads of state to discuss financing for Third World development. Last week, the president announced that he would ask Congress to set aside $5 billion for a special development-aid fund. This aid will be on top of the 10 percent increase in bilateral foreign assistance the White House has asked for in its new budget and a proposed 18 percent increase in U.S. donations to the low-income loan fund at the World Bank.
The Bush plan is a callous, cynical attempt to make headlines and avoid international criticism in Monterrey. The funds the president has put on the table are a drop in the bucket compared with what's really needed. More important, Bush's gesture shortchanges the poor and it shortchanges the current war on terrorism, denying the United States and its allies a major weapon in their fight against Bush's "evil doers" and the poverty that breeds them.
To his credit, Bush has proposed more aid money than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, ever did and is doing more than any of his liberal critics ever expected. The multibillion-dollar increases in bilateral and multilateral aid are not chicken feed. They just aren't enough.