Donald Trump has made it perfectly clear that he wants to chant and cheer “America first.” He doesn’t care who or what gets hurt from his America first policies. It’s his nifty motto and he plans to keep it.
Even when it makes no sense.
Trump’s latest attempt to play American cheerleader reveals how little he understands about how things really work.
Reuters reports that the White House is working on yet another executive order. This one would mandate that all food aid going from the U.S. to other countries must be transported on American ships.
Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Use American ships, employ more Americans, and we get to keep the money that we pay for shipping. Sweet.
Well, it turns out that like so much else that Trump has gotten wrong, this shipping plan isn’t actually simple. Instead it’s simplistic.
Big difference.
In fact, the United States is currently operating under a law that says half of all food must be shipped on American ships. But both parties in Congress have been working for years to reduce that number, because as it turns out, it costs the U.S. 46 percent more to use our own ships.
Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute warns that if we insist on using all American ships, our costs will increase dramatically, and no new jobs would be created.
Oh, and by the way, food would be delayed or made unavailable to millions of desperate and starving people around the world. Estimates are that it takes an average of 14 weeks longer to get food to those in need when American ships are used. Tom Hart of the One Campaign warned:
“Millions of people could be denied the food aid they need to survive if the cargo preference requirement is doubled.”
So the proposed executive order would mean that Americans would spend more tax dollars to get less food to fewer people.
Typical of the current administration. They insist on sticking to their spiffy motto, no matter what the outcome will be. They want to be able to announce that they are putting “America First” by costing us more to accomplish less.
Cue the pompoms.
You can learn more about international food aid in this video.
Featured image by Feed My Starving Children via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
