Canada and the World

[kEiThZ]

I love the idea. Taxpayer subsidies supporting adversarial stances is simply sheer idiocy. Why is that even done at all?

Aid has always been a part of foreign policy. But as some NGOs and governments have forgotten that, others have taken advantage. While Trump's cuts to US AID are crazy, at least some of the animus behind that came from the Americans pouring in all kinds of aid into places like Africa and watching these countries then become Chinese economic colonies. And the Chinese have never done even a small fraction of what the Americans did.

Aid policies have to adjust to this new world. You want Chinese state companies and Russian mercernaries? When disaster comes I don't think Western democracies should feel an obligation to help. You can ask the Chinese and Russians for aid.

 

[a2z]

Yes, you're probably getting rinsed by some or many of those governments and NGOs, but you do hope that they are able to install just enough stability in their respective nations to delay their issues from becoming more costly ones for us..... (the refugees aren't going to take the long road to Russia or China, and few nations in the world are insulated by renaissances of extremism)

Unless you think China will indeed step up when those nations need it.... they seem to be doing so in Myanmar. I'm not sure if they have the economic incentives to do the same in Africa though, but if the conflicts in DR Congo & Sudan tell us something... there probably is some relatively rich country that will be happy to profit from war crimes long as there's a business opportunity.

(Can one consider foreign aid the "tip" necessary for businesses like Barrick Gold to operate more smoothly in certain jurisdictions too )