Serving as one of the most well-known and influential conservative think-tanks within the U.S., the Heritage Foundation has become known in Washington for its championing of ‘free-market’ principles alongside a host of other values, such as limited government, “traditional” values and an independent and “strong” national defence strategy. Recently vocal in its opposition to Obama’s health care reform and environmental legislating, the Foundation has also reserved particular hostility for the notion that U.S. foreign aid can be of significant benefit to U.S. national interests, finding that “rather than focusing on the level of aid, America should focus its efforts on encouraging developing countries to adopt policies conducive to economic growth and development”.

Unsurprisingly, U.S. aid to North Korea has never proved to be a particularly popular strategy amongst those at the Foundation – both in economic and political terms. Arguing that those who depend on U.S. aid “are more likely to fall behind economically than they are to prosper”, the Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedoms aims to prove that aid “often stimulates rent-seeking behavior by the politically well-connected, weakens institutions of democratic governance, and perpetuates the corrupt regimes”. Indeed, and as has been stated elsewhere, it is no secret that the Index’s desire “to show the ineffectiveness of economic assistance in general and of the USAID program in particular” has long garnered the Heritage Foundation “an influential and supportive clientele in the US”.