Cutting aid to impoverished countries will give desperate people more reasons to leave, not to stay, experts say.
LIMA, PERU — Experts agree that U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to halt some $500 million in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras likely won’t lessen the migration crisis at the United States’ border with Mexico.
“We were paying them tremendous amounts of money and we’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us,” Trump declared on March 29, when he announced the measure in retaliation for the supposed failure of the three Central American governments to stem illegal migration to the United States. “They set up these caravans in many cases; they put their worst people in the caravan. They’re not going to put their best in. They get rid of their problems and they march up here.”
But the money is actually intended to allow potential emigrants to stay at home by improving living conditions in the impoverished, violence-wracked countries, including by encouraging economic development and job creation, and helping to tackle rampant corruption and impunity.