Dale Carnegie’s famous self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, centers on investing in personal relationships in order to achieve success. US President Donald J. Trump has demonstrated an instinctive understanding of this principle in the way he has interacted with a succession of world leaders, whether over a round of golf at Mar-a-Lago or an informal dinner in Washington. Yet his administration is set to undermine one of the most effective vehicles for this on a global scale, through proposing a radical cut in funds for the State Department’s international scholarship and exchange programs.
That’s not completely surprising. These programs are often seen as only benefiting foreigners or as wasting money on fuzzy people-to-people contacts, with little tangible outcome for US taxpayers. At a time of competing domestic priorities, it is unsurprising that some believe the funding could be better spent elsewhere.
But cutting funding for the exchange programs would be a giant mistake. These programs, which enable people-to-people diplomacy across a range of fields, are designed to build goodwill toward the United States and enhance the security, stability, and resilience of partners overseas.
This article was originally published in UkraineAlert. Read the full article here.
Image: US President Donald J. Trump (right) and US Vice-President Mike Pence (left) met Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, an alumnus of a US exchange program, at the White House in Washington on May 8. (US Vice President Pence’s Twitter feed)