VOA News: Trump Administration Rethinks Foreign Aid With Eye Toward China
“…China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative [features] billions of dollars in infrastructure investment across Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. The global impact is forcing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to rethink elements of its plan to cut back on foreign assistance under an ‘America First’ strategy. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, interviewed Friday in Mexico City by VOA contributor Greta van Susteren, said Chinese foreign investment will not overwhelm the U.S. … In what is being seen as a major policy reversal, Trump this month signed the so-called BUILD Act, described by the nonpartisan CSIS as ‘the most important piece of U.S. soft power legislation in more than a decade’…” (Guensburg/Widakuswara, 10/19).