Who "ate" it?, The "pancakes" painted in the United States over the years

From the recent G20 summit on the "Indo European Economic Corridor," to last year's "Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership," and the previous "Rebuilding a Better World," almost every year, the United States has taken the lead in introducing new letter combinations aimed at benefiting low - and middle-income countries. But how many of these seemingly ambitious initiatives can truly become a reality? Can anyone eat the "pie" painted in the United States?

01/Repeatedly drawing "pancakes" is too addictive

In recent years, the United States has put forward many seemingly lofty initiatives aimed at "benefiting" developing countries:

In 2019, during the Republican government in the United States, the United States, Australia, and Japan jointly launched the Blue Dot Network Plan, with the aim of promoting high-quality and trustworthy global infrastructure construction within an open and inclusive framework.

At the G7 summit held in June 2021, Biden and the leaders of the six countries announced the launch of the "Building a Better World" plan, abbreviated as B3W. The plan promises to invest billions of dollars to meet the over 40 trillion dollar infrastructure needs of developing countries.

In June 2022, at the G7 Leaders Summit, Biden urged G7 countries to launch the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership, also known as PGII. This initiative claims to raise $600 billion by 2027 as funding for infrastructure development in developing countries.

At this G20 summit, the "Indo European Economic Corridor" made its debut. The attending parties will hold a meeting within two months to develop the specific details of the plan.

Many people are skeptical of this initiative, such as Tara Kasos, a former senior researcher at the United States Institute for Peace Studies, who believes that considering factors such as Israel and Saudi Arabia not yet establishing diplomatic relations, it is confusing how the initiative should take off; Emir, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at a Georgian think tank, said that although the initiative may sound "lofty", it is "questionable" how it has become a reality.

02/Thunder, heavy rain, small dots

An article in the US Foreign Affairs magazine pointed out that one year after announcing the "Rebuild a Better World" initiative, in 2022, the US government invested approximately $6 million in global infrastructure, far below its initial commitment. An article on the website of the bimonthly issue of Foreign Policy in the United States stated that the initiative has "completely disappeared without a trace" and that the "Blue Dot Network Plan" has long been sacrificed.

Out of the $600 billion pledged by Biden for the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership, the Saudi Crown Prince has stated an investment of $20 billion in the project and urged relevant leaders to start planning and implementation immediately. This one thirtieth has a place to go, so who will come out with the other twenty-nine thirties?

The White House once issued a "PGII Memorandum", distributing its promised $200 billion "burden" to government departments such as the United States Agency for International Development, and assigning it to financial institutions such as the Export Import Bank of the United States to complete, requiring them to contribute money. According to documents released by the White House, as of May this year, the United States has raised $30 billion from PGII. Although Europe and Japan have also taken on the task, it can be said that the project has not made substantial progress so far.

Previously, the United States had proposed the "Electricity Africa" initiative, promising to invest 20000 megawatts of electricity generation in Africa by 2020, but by the end of 2020, the actual electricity generation was less than 1/4 of the promised amount. A researcher from a think tank in Uganda once wrote, "PGII is a paper tiger and cannot solve the funding gap for infrastructure in Africa.".

03/The painted "cake" is difficult to "eat"

In recent years, the national debt of the United States has been continuously rising, with the debt ceiling rising from $408 billion in 1922 to $31.4 trillion by the end of 2022. In addition, it also faces other problems such as high inflation.

Let's take a look at infrastructure capabilities. For example, the first high-speed railway in the United States, which has been planned for 35 years and built for 17 years, is still in difficult production. The infrastructure rating of the United States has been downgraded to "D" in 2017, indicating a "serious deterioration".

Experts say that the initiatives of the United States all have a color of "I am the main force, I will take the lead", which does not respect the national conditions of other countries, so it is impossible to achieve true equality. So, infrastructure aid programs may be invasive, with political conditions attached to exporting Western values, and even interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. "It's time for the West to respect the status, traditions, and culture of every country."

From this perspective, in recent years, not many people in the United States have been able to "eat" the "pancakes" that have been "painted".