Ahem

The United States blows a shit-ton of money on corn because corn is a ridiculously shippable, storable source of calories that can be used in soft power diplomacy. "Hedgerow to hedgerow" was about carrot-sticking the Soviet Union during their catastrophic draughts. 'member back in like '06 or whatever when the Bush Administration was all about gasahol and there were food riots in Venezuela and China and shit? Or the rice riots in 2008? The US subsidizes the fuck out of grain so that we can splash it around like a whale in Vegas.

I'm not as up on the sugar subsidies but I'd reckon it's something similar. As far as oil, that's a little trickier because the US only started exporting oil recently... but in addition to being the world's largest oil and gas producer, four of the eleven largest refinery complexes in the world are in Texas or Louisiana. It's mostly foreign oil they process, too - the US has far more control over the world's energy supply than people give it credit for.

By design.

The defense budget for the United States in 2016 is $598 billion. By way of comparison, we spend a third of that on food and energy subsidies.

Which do you think is a more cost-effective method for exercising foreign policy?

Now - I'm not saying this is moral. I'm not saying this is ideal. I'm not saying I wouldn't change it - I'd want to talk to a whole bunch of smart people before I even thought about it. But I've found that the more I dig into things, the more the stupid ways of our world make sense.