6 - The United States, Germany, and Aid for Developing Countries

Summary

Between 1968 and 1990, the United States shed a considerable measure of the “burden” of assistance to developing countries and pressed such rich allies as the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan to assume a larger share. These two countries emerged as leading benefactors to the international development community, with Japan assuming second place behind the United States and the Federal Republic and France in third and fourth places, respectively. Although development issues occasionally provoked disagreements between the United States and the Federal Republic, they could not affect the relationship fundamentally one way or another. Neither their basic policies nor their lists of primary beneficiaries differed significantly. German officials did resent what they perceived to be American dominance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and they privately grumbled that these international agencies in fact served the national interests of the United States, allowing Germany to “foot the bill” for development “without gaining equivalent political clout.” Meanwhile, Germany’s growing presence in the developing world, both as entrepreneur and benefactor, increased rivalry between the allies. Disagreement over the primacy of “North-South” versus “East-West” relations during the last decades of the Cold War likewise provoked disagreements between Germans and Americans, but this debate also took place within each country. The Cold War’s role in development politics declined during this period but it remained fundamental to German-American relations.