There are many strains of libertarians (ranging from left-libertarians to anarcho-capitalists), but I feel safe in stating that they all are skeptical of foreign aid.
At the risk of oversimplifying, there are two reasons for the skepticism.
Libertarians want a significantly smaller federal government.
Libertarians believe government does more harm than good.
What about conservatives? Well the answer depends on the type of conservative (neoconservative, compassionate conservative, national conservative, etc).
All I can say for sure (as someone who got interested and involved in public policy because of Reagan) is that small-government conservatives have always shared libertarian suspicions about the efficacy of foreign aid.
But now there are new reasons for all sorts of people on the right to be hostile to aid.
In a column for the New York Times, Matthew Schmitz explains that the foreign-aid establishment has become linked to left-wing activism.
Survey data from December suggest how politicized the issue has become: Nearly 75 percent of Republicans said foreign aid should decrease, compared to only a third of Democrats. …it helps to understand the damage progressives did to its broad legitimacy over the past decade and a half. …They conflated American interests overseas with progressive priorities… It’s no wonder foreign aid became a ready object of partisan attack. …How does including a third gender in the Bangladeshi census further U.S. foreign policy? What American interest is served by making it possible for people in Kosovo to change their sex on government documents? There are progressive arguments for these policies, which were advanced by U.S.A.I.D. …For conservatives, nothing symbolized this short-circuiting of debate so much as the decision to fly rainbow flags at U.S. embassies… Whatever Cold War-era fondness conservatives still had for foreign aid quickly vanished. …Once foreign aid was politicized, it started to look to conservatives less like a tool for advancing American interests abroad and more like a patronage network for the ideologically aligned. While the sums were often small, there was a cumulative effect: $70,884 in Ireland for a musical event celebrating diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, $32,000 in Peru for a comic “featuring an L.G.B.T.Q.+ hero to address social and mental health issues,” $19,808 in Montenegro for gay-straight alliance clubs. …Any party that uses American power to promote a controversial idea of freedom invites backlash, at home and abroad.
Based on conversations with well-connected Republican friends in D.C., I can confirm that U.S.A.I.D. specifically and foreign aid generally has become more unpopular because of the perception (and, at least in part, reality) that taxpayer money was being funneled to the activist groups on the left.
And some of them are even more upset that taxpayers funds – including aid money – has been used to subsidize the suppression of free speech. Especially since it was folks on the right who were being “de-platformed.”
I agree with conservatives that taxpayers money, including foreign aid, should not be used to either fund the left or to subsidize attacks on speech.
But my main objection is that foreign aid does not achieve its goal of promoting economic development.
I’ll close by observing that there is a difference between development aid (which has failed) and humanitarian aid (temporary assistance after a natural disaster, for instance).
A hard-core libertarian will oppose both, to be sure, but at least there is a rationale for the latter.
Dan Mitchell is co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and Chairman of the Board. He is an expert in international tax competition and supply-side tax policy.
