$42 million sounds like a 2.5% credit card rebate program to me. The US received a net gain of more than US$1.8 billion in the year 2007, and already has netted US$955 million in the first 4 months of 2008 in the trade balance from the DR. Maybe that's why the US Dept of Commerce and the State of Florida always have trade representatives visiting to "grease the wheels of trade".
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/...2470.html#2008
And there are always "strings" attached to any public money given by the US. Like extra radar stations, more port security, more airport security, more US armed forces patrolling the DR's territorial waters with impunity, mainly to stop THEIR problems, not the DR's. The DR wouldn't have a drug problem if people weren't trying to ship product through the DR to sell to the users in the US.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Who should be thankful???