Adam Isacson

Today the White House released its 2024 budget request to Congress, including some preliminary information about U.S. foreign assistance programs. The State Department’s foreign aid overview points to almost exactly $3 billion in aid requested for next year in Latin America and the Caribbean, which would be about 9 percent more than in 2022.

I took the Latin America-specific items out of the administration’s PDF and present them in a Google Sheet with two tabs, one sorted by country and one sorted by program.

This isn’t quite all of U.S. aid. The budget request mentions some global aid programs (probably including some refugee aid) that also channel resources to the Western Hemisphere, without specifying how much individual regions and countries are getting. So that would be additional. In addition, probably 200 or 300 million dollars in assistance goes to the region’s security forces through the Defense budget, and that’s neither reported well nor reflected here.

So the real 2024 total for Latin America could be closer to $4 billion. At first glance I don’t see any dramatic changes in the proposed assistance, which has followed the same general outlines since Barack Obama’s second term.

• Latest edition of a regular CRS overview of Mexican politics and economics, U.S.-Mexican relations, and assistance. Good U.S. aid numbers.
  Clare Ribando Seelke, Mexico: Background and U.S. Relations (Washington: Congressional Research Service, April 29, 2020) https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R42917.
• Latest edition of a regular CRS overview of Honduran politics and bilateral relations with the United States.
  Peter J. Meyer, Honduras: Background and U.S. Relations (Washington: Congressional Research Service, April 27, 2020) https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL34027.
• The Government Accountability Office found that Customs and Border Protection wildly overspent on a tent facility to house apprehended migrants during late 2019.
  U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Management of a Temporary Facility in Texas Raised Concerns about Resources Used (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, April 9, 2020) https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-321R.

• The State Department’s annual report on other countries’ counter-drug efforts, with some information about U.S. aid.
  2020 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Washington: Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 2, 2020) <PDF from https://www.state.gov/2020-international-narcotics-control-strategy-report/>.
• Intricately detailed tables of the status of aid to Central America between 2013 and 2018, from a GAO performance audit.
  U.S. Assistance to Central America: Status of Funding (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 4, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-163R>.
• Two GAO reports about the Homeland Security Department’s processing—and cruel separating—of apprehended migrant families.
  Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Address Fragmentation in DHS’s Processes for Apprehended Family Members (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 18, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-274>.
  Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Improve DHS Processing of Families and Coordination between DHS and HHS (Washington: U.S. Government Accountability Office, March 18, 2020) <PDF at https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-245>.

The table of aid to Colombia following this paragraph comes from the explanatory statement for the State Department and foreign aid part of the 2017 budget bill (PDF). It reflects the deal struck in Congress on Sunday to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, averting a government shutdown.

And here is what the Obama administration had asked Congress for back in February 2016. This table came from an exchange with congressional staff that month.

The aid accounts are listed in different order, but they make clear Congress did not change or cut the Obama White House’s so-called “Peace Colombia” request for post-conflict Colombia in 2017. This is good news.

Since “International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement” pays for some judicial programs, it is probably a majority non-military package—depending perhaps on how you count the $21 million for de-mining. That is the first time I’ve seen Colombia get a majority non-military / non-police aid package in the 22 years since I started keeping track in 1996.

You may have heard that this was a $450 million aid package. That’s right. The same exchange with legislative staff pointed out that an additional $44.6 million is estimated to come through the Defense Department’s Counter-Drug and Counter-Transnational Organized Crime account, and $14.7 million comes through non-aid State Department accounts: “Public Diplomacy,” “Voice of America,” and “Trade and Development Agency.” (I dispute whether that extra $14.7 million should actually count as aid—but whatever.)