One of the things I'd like to do over the next couple of years is to try erase this
very sharp line between our military efforts in national security and our diplomatic and
foreign assistance efforts.
Because in this environment today, we've got to think of it all as one piece.
If you look at our foreign assistance as a tool in our national security portfolio, as
opposed to charity, and you combined our defense budget overall with our diplomatic budget and our
foreign assistance budget,
then in that mix there's a lot more that we should be doing when it comes to helping Honduras
and Guatemala build an effective criminal justice system, effective police, and economic
development that creates jobs.
Matt Yglesias: So you're saying it would make sense to reallocate those resources?
Barack Obama: Well, and part of the challenge here is just public awareness. Time and time again, when they
do surveys, and they ask people what proportion of the federal budget is spent on foreign
aid? They'll say, ‘uh, 25%’.
They're pretty sure all their hard-earned money that they're paying in taxes is somehow going
to other folks. And you know right now,
It varies between 1-2% depending on how you define it.
If we were to make some strategic investments in countries that really could use our help,
we would then not have to deploy our military as often and we would be in a better position
to work with other countries to stamp out violent extremism.