New Orleans        The Trump 2.0 administration has choked off aid to other countries, especially poor countries where the United States Agency for International Development (US-AID) was a lifesaver in combating disease, mitigating disasters, and assisting in economic development.  Legal action has left the agency on a lifeline, but money is still not moving.

Adding insult to injury, there was yet another shocker in Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill giveaway to continue his 2017 gifts to the rich.  It wasn’t enough that he and his team have gone to war against the poor in America with plans to curtail and create barriers for food stamps, Medicaid, and housing support.  He also wants to deliver another death blow to the economies of other countries.  One section goes after remittances:

House Republicans have included in President Donald Trump’s big priority bill a 5% excise tax on remittance transfers that would cover more than 40 million people, including green card holders and non-immigrant visa holders, such as people on H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visas. U.S. citizens would be exempt.

Understand clearly how important remittances are to the economy of many countries.  They dwarf foreign aid by any measure.  In the last reported fiscal year, $68.2 billion in foreign aid was distributed by the US.  Compare this to the estimates of remittances sent from the US:

According to the World Bank, remittances sent to home countries in 2023 totaled about $656 billion — equivalent to the gross domestic product of Belgium. The money that Mexican migrants send home to their relatives grew by 7.6% in 2023 to reach a record $63.3 billion for the year.

The math is simple.  US foreign add was only a smidgen more than 10% to all countries compared to what workers and family members in the US were sending to their home countries, relatives, and others there.  Taking 5% off the top would suck out another $32 billion, if the US can figure out how to collect it.  Among US states, only Oklahoma taxes remittances and proposals have been rejected 18 times so far elsewhere.

The largest beneficiaries of these cash transfers are Mexico, China, and India, but they are not alone.  Remittances are huge throughout Central America.  The $6 million El Salvador receives for imprisoning illegally deported people from this administration will be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount they will lose from this tax, if it passes this way.  According to the USDA, in 2023, El Salvador received $8.182 billion in remittances, with the US being the largest contributor adding up to about 25% of their GDP in 2021. This is one buddy among many of Trump’s who would feel like he was penny wise and pound foolish.  The list of countries that would suffer in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is endless, as studies ACORN and its partners have shown in the past.

There’s no sense of irony or shame that can be found in this administration or the Republican caucus.  The rationale for this claw back from foreign workers, as usual, will be a claim that it will retard foreign illegal migration to the US. Migrant experts actually argue that reducing income to home countries will reduce income and jobs in those communities forcing more people to migrate, not as an unintended consequence, but as a direct result.

This will cost us much more on every level than the small amount it will raise and distribute to the rich.  The president is the tin man without a heart, joined by many others clanging right alongside him.