Time to redirect America’s foreign policy

We live in an increasingly globalized world, where trade relationships are a necessary factor for each country in maintaining economic growth and stability. The United States is an especially good example of utilizing trade relationships as a part of good economic policy, both working together to produce a strong national security framework.

Our Founding Fathers also encouraged the maintenance of mutually beneficial trade relationships with other nations while forewarning us not to become over-entangled. Unfortunately, our country has much to improve on reducing alliance entanglement, especially in those premised on top-down nation building.

Instead of prioritizing the installation of new democratic governments, the United States should pursue trade relationships with stable governments and then work to identify that country’s specific needs and direct investments into areas related to those needs. This should include investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, education, and health care among others. We should work to help countries build their economies through smart investments into targeted sectors, leading to the kind of business development that creates industries and jobs needed to spur the evolution of our trade relationship.

Time and again I have seen critical aid and trade programs predicated on requirements relating to good governance and social justice objectives. These causes are noble and necessary for the full development of a country. However, can we expect a developing nation to comprehend or accept drastic social and political changes that took our nation over 200 years to achieve? We must recognize that developing nations are just that—developing—and must be given the time to align with a defined list of metrics, values, and long-term structural goals.

The United States should radically alter the way we see trade agreements by focusing on these long-term structural changes over short-term political wins. Our trade policies should be tiered based on each country’s alignment with those metrics, values and goals, whereby each country may decide for themselves at what level they would like to engage with the United States.

The top tier for most preferential trade agreements could include countries that align with the values and goals of the United States above the 90 percent threshold. The second tier could include nations aligning with us in between the 80 and 90 percent mark, receiving a slightly less preferential trade deal. These tiers would continue until those countries falling below the 65 percent mark, where they would receive little to no preference in trade agreements.

While these numbers are arbitrary, it illustrates a reversal on conventional trade agreement negotiation. These arrangements would be voluntary as each country would have the ability to evaluate their own economic and developmental incentives to decide internally on what trade tier they would like to qualify for.

The United States has an incredible variety of international development programs at its disposal to assist developing countries in pursuing their structural and economic goals. The work USAID and other organizations do should not be taken for granted. However, our country has also seen hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on initiatives that have yet to see results. Out of the countries with which we trade and invest a significant amount of foreign assistance in, too many continue to experience rampant problems with corruption, crime, poverty and human rights.

For example, since 2007 Mexico has received over $3 billion from the United States in direct foreign aid for job creation, infrastructure development, and anti-corruption efforts, and an additional $3 billion in counter drug trafficking efforts through the MERIDA Initiative. The results have been lacking, to say the least. The same could be said for Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. Yet we continue to reward these nations with preferential trade agreements.

It’s time for America to get serious on how we invest aid and negotiate trade. Last year, Congress passed the BUILD Act which created the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Working alongside the Millennial Challenge Corporation (MCC), we now have two powerful tools for international infrastructure development. Both the MCC and the DFC understand what it will take to stimulate long-term economic development in a country with metrics in place to measure the success of that development. It’s up to the recipient country to decide what behavioral changes to pursue to accomplish their desired level of development.

In the end, it is the responsibility of other countries to decide their path while factoring in the trade relationship they want with our country. The United States should be in the business of facilitating partnerships and building trade alliances, not dictating outcomes or how a country must live.

Yoho is a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee.