The U.S. State Department appears determined to ensure that everyone knows its foreign assistance programs are very different from China’s. Even though the State Department didn’t mention the Chinese by name in either their tweet or the accompanying article, the multiple references to “some governments” and “debt-trap diplomacy” were nonetheless revealing:
U.S. foreign aid is in contrast to the “debt-trap diplomacy” pursued by some governments. Those governments offer loans under terms so costly that debtor nations struggle to repay. That traps communities and countries in a cycle of debt that can make them vulnerable to undue pressure. Typically, governments that make such loans also import their own workers for development projects, depriving recipient countries’ workers of jobs.
