US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced details of a plan for development in the Indo-Pacific region on Monday, pledging US$113 million in investments focused on energy, infrastructure and digital connectivity.
While Pompeo stressed that the program did not intend to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, his speech spoke to several criticisms levied at Beijing’s investments.
“With American companies, citizens around the world know that what you see is what you get: honest contracts, honest terms, and no need for off-the-books mischief,” Pompeo said while speaking at the event at the US Chamber of Commerce.
“For us the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is not just a law – it is a point of pride. Integrity in businesses’ practices is an essential pillar of our Indo-Pacific economic vision.”
His comments reflected criticisms from the US, along with European allies and Japan, that Beijing’s ambitious initiative to fund infrastructure and economic development projects around the globe lacks transparency.
“The Trump administration is committed to expanding our economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region,” Pompeo said, adding “we believe in strategic partnerships, not strategic dependency.”
The announcement comes as the White House faces domestic criticism for what some have characterized as an isolationist foreign policy and a withdrawal from economic engagement around the globe.
Pompeo stressed at the event that, while the administration withdrew for the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the US is working “to craft better, higher-standard bilateral trade agreements.”
“These funds represent just a down payment on a new era in US economic commitment to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.
Only can affort $113M? Goodness. A drop in the ocean.
Honestly the US or for that matter no power is honest. It is all for national self interest. Any other way is pie in the sky.
Countries of the world, watch out! This is the start of neo-western economic colonisation. You will be forced to accept loans with high interest rates from the IMF, World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The debt trap will be set and once you have fallen into it, your country will be turned into another Greece, or Argentina, or Brazil, etc, etc..
Ref: Confessions of an Economic Hitman. John Perkins. Ebury Publishing
In saying the 113 million dollars as a down payment, Pompeo probably had scratched his head not knowing what the total sum of investment could be when he thought of the US national debt standing at 15.3 trillion dollars. He must have had in mind the 4-8 trillions dollars projected to be invested in the BRI when he said the down payment is not intended to compete with it.
Why would any country enter a bilateral trade agreement with Trump’s America? Trump has made it clear that the US intends any such agreement to be a "win" for the US and "lose" for the other country. Moreover, the US will want "sunset’ clauses that would make such agreements all but worthless. The US simply cannot be trusted; it is doing its best to dismantle and undermine the very rules and institutions that would make economic agreements with it viable and subject, somewhere down the line, to American extortion.