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NEW YORK -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday laid out his vision for the future of foreign aid, one tied closely to his domestic policy prescriptions which promote the power of free enterprise and of hard work to lift people out of poverty.
In an address to one of the nation's pre-eminent philanthropic groups, the Clinton Global Initiative (the namesake group of former President Bill Clinton), Romney outlined a foreign aid strategy that would emphasize public and private partnerships to boost the economies of developing nations.
While speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney offered his take on why current US foreign aid practices are generally ineffective, saying that building a strong nation through free enterprise is the best assistance America can provide to developing and impoverished nations.
"For American foreign aid to become more effective, its got to embrace the principles that you see in these global initiatives," Romney said, referring to his host, the Clinton Global Initiative's annual conference. "The power of partnerships, access the transformative nature of free enterprise, and leverage of the abundant resources that can come from the private sector."
Romney then outlined his views on foreign aid, which he said should be tied to the opening of markets in developing nations. The GOP presidential candidate argued that foreign aid -- coming from either government or private investments -- should be focused on developing long-term economic opportunity so that the money that is spent has a better chance of making a lasting difference.
"A temporary aid package can give an economy a boost. It can fund projects. It can pay some bills. It can employ some people for a time," Romney said. "But it can’t sustain an economy -- not for the long term. It can’t pull the whole cart, if you will -- because at some point, the money runs out.
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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.
The former private equity CEO then debuted a new model of public and private development in his speech, which he referred to as "Prosperity Pacts."
"To foster work and enterprise in the Middle East and in other developing countries, I will initiate something I'll call 'Prosperity Pacts.' Working with the private sector, the program will identify the barriers to investment, trade, and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurialism in developing nations," Romney said. "In exchange for removing those barriers and opening their markets to U.S. investment and trade, developing nations will receive U.S. assistance packages focused on developing the institutions of liberty, the rule of law, and property rights."
"We will focus our efforts on small and medium-size businesses. Microfinance has been an effective tool at promoting enterprise and prosperity, but we've got to expand support to small and medium-size businesses that are oftentimes too large for microfinance, but too small for traditional banking," he continued.
The 20-minute speech by the GOP challenger to President Barack Obama marked perhaps his most detailed presentation of how the United States might interact with the developing world in a Romney administration. It came just hours before Obama was set to address the United Nations general assembly across midtown Manhattan, in a stretch of campaigning in which foreign policy has supplanted the economy as the election's driving force.
Romney was introduced in his remarks by former Clinton, who has assumed an outsized role in the presidential race in recent weeks, as the Romney campaign elevated the former president in an effort to paint Obama as too liberal and far outside the centrist Clinton tradition. Clinton only turned about to offer an outspoken defense of Obama at the Democratic National Convention, a stirring speech which many analysts credit for boosting Obama's poll numbers immediately thereafter.
Taking the podium, Romney joked about his host's warm introduction.
"If there's one thing we've learned in this election season by the way, its that a few words from Bill Clinton can do a man a lot of good," Romney deadpanned, continuing as the laughter in the room subsided. "All I've gotta do now is wait a couple of days for that bounce to happen."
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Instead of focusing on foreign aid, how about focusing on helping American citizens in our great nation . . .
Until every American has a good paying job with outstanding benefits, I say screw foreigners, and let them help themselves using their own wealth, not ours!
Just no end to the welfare checks the Democrats and Republicans they are willing to dish out to those "poor counties" using hard earned AMERICAN tax dollars.
Neither party gets it. AMERICANS are in need of "foreign aid" welfare checks as much as those poor counties.
Year after year our government has sent welfare payments to those poor counties and yet, not one country can show any marked improvement in helping the poor.
Where has all that money gone? Into the bank accounts of who ever runs that government at that time. To fund more war, to kill more people with weapons that were bought with welfare checks. The leaders living like millionaires off the backs of their people who never see a dime or profit from all that money.
These guys just don't get it. If they spent all that money on the poor, here in the United States, we would have no poor, and maybe no unemployment, more manufactering, more educated, the list goes on and on.
When Mitt says foreign aid through private enterprise he means closing factories in the U.S. and opening them in China, and the proceeds from those factories would go to Swiss banks and the Bahamas. Bringing them here would force corporations to pay taxes, a total blasphemy for the GOP/TP.
It is a bit late and does not make sense.
sounds like a thinly disguised way for american business to outsource more american jobs!
Myth Robme may actually have a good idea here.
But we don't need him in the Presidency to get it implemented, that's for sure.
How come all the "detailed" and "creative" stuff comes out just weeks before the election when we have no time to examine it? Ah, yes, don't worry all the details "will be given after you elect me"
Would you buy a used car from this man? This guy who is such a monumental ignoramus that he puts his dog on the roof of his car, and publicly wonders why the windows on 500 mph jetliners don't open at 40 kft?
Jesus.
Maybe we should give them money for education instead of interfering with their markets. But Romney wants to close our own Department of Education, so why give third world folks any education?
Privatize profit, Publicize risk. Nothing new here, same old Romney. Amazing how Republicans will vote against their own best interests. He's been running "Prosperity Pacts" for decades. It's called overseas outsourcing...except this time around he would have the US PAY all the costs instead of <just> giving a perpetual tax credit to the business.
Just stick with obamas plans! Print more money, raise taxes, put even more people on welfare and foodstamps and give more billions of taxpayers money to the muslim brotherhood while we barrow it from china! Good plan!!!!
He will probably put Haliburton in charge. Another way to make huge profits for the private sector with tax dollars. You can be sure Bain would invest and Romney would make huge profits through his "blind trust".
It's like Romney's support of privatizing education. One of his sons is involved in for profit schools. So Tagg or Craig or Chip or whichever one it is, needs to make more money because his trust fund isn't enough.
Private sector foreign aid????? and the private sector foreign aid will want what in return???? Cheap labor to help out these people......Right! More jobs going over seas with this philosophy.......
Republicans for Obama
Because the GOP can't seem to put anyone worthy up there to vote for!