How is the United States able to give billions to other countries when we are trillions in debt and how does it get approved?
In: Economics
Because when your country has a budget of $6 trillion a year, giving out $70 billion means only about 1.2% of the budget. The US just happens to have one of the biggest national budgets on Earth, so a tiny percentage equates to enormous amounts.
Further, most of this aid is supplies (often slightly outdated military hardware the US has been stockpiling since the Cold War) or services (e.g. humanitarian assistance) rather than actual, literal dollars. That means the US can technically “give hundreds of billions of dollars” while actually *saving* money (in the long run) on its budget sheet, because all that military hardware has maintenance costs that now don’t need to be paid.
As for who approves it? Congress for the big stuff (like large military aid or treaties made with countries like Israel), while individual agencies’ budgets take care of “smaller” stuff on the order of millions of dollars (because even a hundred million dollars is literally invisible on the US budget sheet–less than 0.002%.)
Also, some of it is required by our treaty obligations. E.g. as a signatory of NATO, the US is required to contribute a certain minimum percentage of GDP to common defense spending. The US has always committed much, much more than is required, completely voluntarily–because most of us understand the value of having a mutual-defense alliance that stands firm against totalitarian regimes worldwide.
TL;DR: Because the US is so stupidly rich, we can give away 2% of our budget and we barely notice. Congress approves big-ticket aid (e.g. “billions to aid Ukraine”), and lets agencies spend their individual budgets as they see fit.
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