Hopelessness And Hope

President Donald Trump called out poor countries for being “S***holes.” Yes, there are terrible places to live. And, yes, it is easy to build a wall and say figure it out on your own. But we can’t, our correspondent writes after a trip to Sierra Leone—and here’s why

- Sam Hill

IN 2018, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” That not-so-subtle implication—poor people from poor countries are inferior to rich people from rich countries—properly outraged most people. But the question contains an uncomfortable truth. Many countries are indeed terrible places to live, especially for those on the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder. There’s no official definition of Trump’s “shithole,” but we know which ones he means. Countries that are poor, violent and mostly brown. Guatemala. Sudan. Yemen. Myanmar. Niger. Haiti. Bangladesh. Pakistan. Although most of the countries that fit Trump’s definition are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Even as worldwide well-being rises, these troubled countries fall further and further behind. Nothing we do seems to help. Over the last 50 years, developed nations have poured over $3 trillion dollars into official development assistance for developing nations. No one knows how much more has been provided in humanitarian and military aid, or how much has come from private organizations. And yet desperate people continue to mass on the U.S. southern border.

It is tempting to build a wall and tell developing countries to figure it out on their own as our president would have it. Except we can’t. We have no way to insulate ourselves from their problems: Deforestation. AIDS. Ebola. Terrorism. Drugs. Gangs. Illegal immigration. Ecological disasters. Any more than they have a way to protect themselves from ours: Climate change. Worker abuse. Toxic waste. Sexploitation. No wall will keep our worlds apart.

So what do we do? Increase aid funding for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals? Tax breaks to encourage private investment?