For nearly as long as our nation has existed, providing food to those in need around the world has been a core feature of America’s story. It is a legacy that echoes through time from the earliest days of our union, when leaders first debated our obligations to each other and to the world.
A quarter of a millennium later, as our nation celebrates its 250th birthday, feeding a hungry world remains an intensely bipartisan priority among American lawmakers. This commitment has stood the test of time, not only because it reflects our morality and humanity, but also because aid has proven time and again to advance American economic and national security interests.
It’s why in the aftermath of the Second World War, we launched our first permanent food aid program, Food for Peace, to share the bounty of American farms with the world. It’s why the Marshall Plan placed food security and agricultural development at the center of European recovery. This is why leaders from opposing parties, like Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and George McGovern (D-S.D.), worked together to export the success of American school meals to the world through the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program.
For generations, the U.S. has led the world in the fight to end hunger based on the simple belief that American strength is amplified when we lead with principle and purpose. When we invest in the most fundamental human needs, we help create a world that is more connected, stable and universally prosperous.
Yet, there is an emerging narrative that we as a nation must now choose between promoting trade or providing aid. This forced binary is built on the idea that the era of U.S. humanitarian leadership has somehow passed, that it is an investment the United States can no longer afford to make.
But “trade or aid” is a false choice.
Trade cannot happen when basic human needs go unmet. Decades of U.S. humanitarianism has pulled countless millions out of poverty and hunger and produced some of our largest and most reliable trading partners. That wasn’t a happy accident of history, but the outcome of strategic American investments in food security, health and education.
The cost of retreat from providing international assistance, particularly food aid, would be immediate, with a long tail of consequences that stretches for decades to come.
In the short term, hunger will metastasize into conflict and instability when allowed to fester, ultimately requiring more costly — often military — interventions to solve. We don’t often see headlines of countries spared from the clutches of famine, but these successes are all around us in the conflicts we avoid.
In the long term, an American withdrawal from the business of saving lives would be quickly filled by our adversaries, through means inconsistent with our values and producing coercive alliances that run counter to our interests. We won’t truly discover these costs until we abandon aid altogether, and the slow, methodical work of preparing the next generation of American trading partners and allies grinds to a halt.
The most powerful tools of American influence are often the quietest.
This year is about more than celebrating our past. It is about reaffirming what kind of nation we want to be. International food aid programs are not relics of a bygone era. They remain our clearest expressions of American leadership and strength through generosity.
As we look to the next 250 years, we would do well to recognize that aid and trade — like strength and compassion — are not in competition with one another but are inextricably linked.
Doing both is the path to a safer, stronger and more prosperous world.
Christine Todd Whitman is a board member at World Food Program USA and former governor of New Jersey.
This article was written by Christine Todd Whitman and originally published on The Hill.
