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Who funds the UN?
Who funds WHO?
Who spends more money fighting disease around the world?
When thereÂ’s a natural disaster whoÂ’s there with money and supplies?
Who feeds the world?
Who keeps despots in check?
Who keeps the world safe from totalitarianism?
Who defends Europe?
Great questions, Duffy! Sorry for the delay – leg day at the gym, a turbo session, and a five month old who deosn’t care about Duffy’s fantastic questions, unfortunately!
Who funds the UN? The UN is funding by the member states proportionally based on GNP, adjusted against global average GNP. For 2016 the US funded 22% of the overall contribution. The US accounts for 4.3% of the global population, and has a healthy GNP. Of the top 10 contributors to the UN, Japan, Germany and France fund a higher percentage per capita than the US and the UK is on par.
If we look at the top ten contributors to the UN again, France, UK, Germany and Italy combined are 84% the size of the US but fund 19.46% of the overall contribution to the UN. If these four nations were to contribute at an equivalent level to the US per capita, they would only fund 18.5%.
To put that into perspective, Duffy from the US pays less that Riku from Japan, Jan from Germany, Camille from France and about the same as John from the UK.
Who funds WHO? The WHO is funded by voluntary donations a well as contributions from individual member nations. In 2016, the US contributed 18.9%. Using the previous example of the four European countries, who we have established have a combined population only 84% that of the US, their contribution is 22% of the overall WHO contributions.
Again, using our perspective from the previous example, now Duffy is paying less than Riku, Jan, Camille, John, and also Valentina from Italy.
Who spends more money fighting disease around the world? Besides the WHO? Give me a clueÂ…
Who feeds the world? IÂ’m not really sure I understand the question. Given the majority of western countries have banned imports of many US foods due to genetic modification, food additives, synthetic hormones, antibiotics and other additives fed to pigs, cows, turkeys and farmed salmon for example. The US is attempting to strong arm entry to European markets, including trying to avoid having the country of product stated on packaging denying consumers the final right to make informed food choices. Why do you suspect that is?
If we look at the global value of food exports, the US exports about $150 billion in 2014. If we look at the example of Europe, Germany, UK, France, Italy Netherlands and Belgium make up 93% of the population size of the US, yet exported $374 billion in 2014. In terms of food export dollars per capita, the US is around fourteenth in the World.
Who keeps despots in check? Another interesting question. The US has a long history of supporting despots who provide American interests access to their national resources or markets. Commonly these relationships are rarely beneficial for the population of that nation.
But that’s a bit too simplistic. The US views the World through a prism of its own interests, and therefore is happy to paint leaders who oppose US interests as “despots”, “madmen”, “axis of evil”, etc. Sometimes justifiably, always whenever it suits American interests. The US is happy to be close allies with many nations whose leaders are less than salubrious for their own nationals.
But now youÂ’ve got your own African-esque dictator, so yay! #MAGA
Who keeps the world safe from totalitarianism? The closest nation to achieving global totalitarianism is the US. So, I would have to posit that the US is not best placed to prevent that, especially given the self-proclaimed “America First” global policy. The balance of global power is currently in a state of change, however a monopoly on global power and influence is rarely beneficial from a macro view. Most markets tend towards a duopoly eventually, although one might hope for a more globally representative body having global influence, based on GNP and population.
Who defends Europe? Diplomacy. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.
This isn't to belittle America's contribution to the World in anyway, but simply saying, "We're the biggest! MAGA!" is just like saying your tribe is bigger. It doesn't take into account alliances i.e. in the above examples we've shown the the European Union is a similar size to the US yet contributes more in terms of the examples you've given.
All data is available from the various organisations websites (UN, WHO, NATO, etc...)
