Nick Gier really should stick to teaching the philosophy of dead white males. When it comes to economics, he’s out of his depth.
He writes in the Daily News:
One would expect that in anticipation of meeting with the heads of NATO’s 29 nations, our so-called president would at least learn some basic facts about this nearly 70-year-old alliance.
Instead, an ignorant and boorish Donald Trump stunned these leaders with a lie that most NATO countries are financial deadbeats. He claimed that “many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years.” With regard to NATO’s actual finances, these countries don’t owe anything.
In 2006, under pressure from the U.S., NATO countries promised they would increase their own national defense budgets to 2 percent of their gross domestic products.
In 2006 they were pressured to raise their defense budgets to 2% of their GDP. That’s after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And when the USA was spending 4% of GDP on defense — much of that going to protect our allies.
Now, you can argue that 4% of GDP is too much (I would argue so), but you cannot argue that expecting our allies to raise their defense spending to 2% in order to off-set our expenses is not unreasonable. And their spending half of what we’re spending to protect them is not paying their fair share.
Gier also writes:
The U.S. spends a paltry 0.17 percent of its GDP on foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to reduce that by gutting the State Department’s budget. A specific target may be the Office of Religion and Global Affairs. There are unfilled positions in programs tasked with curbing anti-Semitism and preventing radicalization in the Muslim world.
The 28-member European Union budgets on average 0.47 percent of GDP to foreign aid. Sweden, which is in the EU but not in NATO, allocates 1.4 percent, and Norway is next highest at 1.05 percent.
I have absolutely no idea where Gier came up with these numbers.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations report dated 11 Apr 2017, the US spent $49 billion in 2015. Here is the report:
Aid rose again in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, surpassing 1.4 percent of the budget by 2007, which analysts say was driven largely by assistance to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as President George W. Bush’s global health programs.
Seriously, he should stick to dead white male philosophers. That’s his area of expertise.