Foreign aid benefits the United States  While foreign aid is obviously for the benefit of the recipient country that country is not the only one that benefits; U.S. business is often a major beneficiary. It does this in two ways: First they benefit directly through carrying out the contracts for supplying aid, for example Cargill was paid $96million for supplying food aid in 2010-11. [1] Secondly there are also indirect benefits. Through the work of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Obama administration hopes to “develop partnerships with countries committed to enabling the private sector investment that is the basis of sustained economic growth to open new markets for American goods, promote trade overseas, and create jobs here at home”. [2] Essentially, through foreign aid, both the economies of the developing world and the United States come out ahead. Even Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has been quoted as saying that the 1 percent the United States spends on foreign aid “not only saves millions of lives, it has an enormous impact on developing countries – which means it has an impact on our economy”. [3]  [1] Provost, Claire, and Lawrence, Felicity, ‘US food aid programme criticised as ‘corporate welfare’ for grain giants’, guardian.co.uk, 18 July 2012.  [2] ‘What we do’, USAID, 12 September 2012.  [3] Worthington, Samuel, ‘US foreign aid benefits recipients – and the donor’, guardian.co.uk, 14 February 2011.