Foreign spending vs. domestic preference

In 2023, the United States spent roughly $68 billion on foreign aid and security assistance. That's about $200 from every American — money that left your paycheck, crossed an ocean, and landed in 140 countries. Israel got $3.8 billion. Ukraine got roughly $24 billion in military and economic assistance. Egypt got $1.5 billion, most of it military, as it has every year since the Camp David Accords in 1978. Ethiopia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Colombia — the list goes on.

Some of this money vaccinated children, built water systems, and prevented famines. Some of it bought F-16s for governments that use them on their own citizens. Some of it disappeared into the private bank accounts of officials who were supposed to distribute it. The question isn't whether foreign spending is good or bad — that's a bumper sticker, not an analysis. The question is: how do you, as the person who paid for it, figure out which is which?

Why your government sends money abroad

Every dollar that leaves the country comes with a justification. There are really only five, and once you learn them, you can categorize any foreign expenditure in about thirty seconds:

Security. "If we don't fight them there, we'll fight them here." The idea is that spending money to stabilize or arm allies abroad prevents threats from reaching the homeland. This is the justification for roughly half of all U.S. foreign spending — military aid, counterterrorism funding, intelligence cooperation.

Influence. "We need allies, and allies cost money." This is the transactional stuff — foreign aid as the price of a UN vote, a military basing agreement, or a trade deal. When the U.S. gives Egypt $1.5 billion a year, it's not because Egypt is poor. It's because Egypt controls the Suez Canal and signed a peace treaty with Israel.

Humanitarian. "People are dying and we can help." USAID disaster relief, global health programs, famine prevention. This is the category Americans are most proud of and that accounts for a smaller share of spending than most people think.

Economic. "Open their markets so we can sell to them." Development assistance that builds infrastructure, strengthens legal systems, and creates consumers for American products. USAID has always had a dual mandate: help the recipient and benefit American exporters.

Ideological. "Spread democracy and human rights." National Endowment for Democracy, civil-society funding, election monitoring. The stated goal is values; the operational effect is often regime preference.

How to tell if the money worked

Here's where it gets hard, and here's where most people give up. Don't. Each justification has a testable claim, and the data to test it usually exists.

For security spending, ask: did the threat decrease? Can the decrease be attributed to the spending? What would have happened without it? This is the hardest category because success is invisible — a war that didn't happen doesn't make headlines. But you can measure proxy indicators: terrorist attacks in a region before and after a counterterrorism program, weapons proliferation rates, stability indices. The data isn't perfect, but it exists.

For influence spending, ask: did the recipient do what we wanted? This is actually the most measurable category. UN voting records are public — you can look up whether countries that receive U.S. aid vote with the U.S. in the General Assembly. (Spoiler: the correlation is weaker than you'd think.) Military basing agreements are public. Trade access is measurable. If we're paying $1.5 billion a year for Egyptian cooperation, you can check whether Egypt is cooperating.

For humanitarian spending, ask: did fewer people die? Did child mortality decrease? Did vaccination rates increase? Did famine occur? The World Health Organization, the World Bank, and dozens of independent monitors track these numbers. This is the category where the data is best and the results are most clearly positive — PEPFAR, the U.S. program to combat HIV/AIDS, is credited with saving over 25 million lives since 2003. That's real.

For economic spending, ask: did trade volumes with the recipient increase? Did American companies gain market access? What was the return on investment compared to spending the same money on domestic infrastructure? These are calculable.

For ideological spending, ask: is the country more democratic now? Are human rights better protected? This is where the record is most mixed and the self-delusion most common. The U.S. has spent billions promoting democracy in countries that are less democratic today than when the spending started.

The numbers most people don't know

The entire U.S. foreign aid budget — everything, including military assistance — is less than 1% of the federal budget. Polls consistently show that Americans think it's 25%. That gap between perception and reality is itself a political fact. It means foreign aid gets more political heat per dollar than any other category of spending. It also means that eliminating it entirely wouldn't meaningfully change the deficit, your taxes, or the national debt. The debate over foreign aid is almost never about the money. It's about the symbolism.

The largest recipients of U.S. military aid are Israel ($3.8B), Egypt ($1.3B), and Jordan ($1.7B). All three are strategic positioning in the Middle East. The largest recipients of economic and development aid are Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Ukraine. The pattern tells you more about American strategic priorities than about global need.

Visit the full Foreign Spending Scorecard to see per-country data, donor claims, documented outcomes, and the citizen verification playbook.