United States foreign aid

The United States government provides tangible and intangible varieties of aid or assistance to several foreign countries and organizations. While this aid is primarily distributed with the goal of advancing the country's national security and commercial interests, it has also bolstered humanitarian causes around the world. The funding for these foreign aid programs comes from American taxpayers and other appropriated revenue sources as assessed by Congress on an annual basis through the United States budget process. It is dispersed through "over 20 U . government agencies that manage foreign assistance programs," although about half of all economic assistance is channeled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Historically, countries of strategic importance to the United States are regularly destined for United States foreign aid. Today, the vast majority of recipients of United States foreign aid are developing countries and countries recovering from war or disaster. Foreign aid as employed by the United States serves three basic functions—to provide security, developmental, and humanitarian assistance. While the United States has given aid to other countries since 1812, it was not until World War II that these efforts expanded to become a sustained part of government policy, as attested by the Marshall Plan (1948) and the Mutual Security Act (1951), which were the largest foreign aid programs of the post-war period. The current United States foreign aid spending system was implemented in 1961. Quantitatively, United States foreign aid is more than that of any country in the world, though as a percentage of GDP, it ranks nearly last in a comparison with foreign aid spending by other developed countries. Foreign aid typically receives bipartisan support in Congress because it is seen as an effective method of promoting global economic development under the United States sphere of influence, thereby promoting national security. Conversely, it is deeply unpopular among the American public, possibly due in part to the spread of inflated figures for the scale of government spending on foreign aid programs.