China is building a global empire of debt. Since 2005, it has invested over $2 trillion overseas, including hundreds of billions of loans for projects that would struggle to get financing from private lenders. When these enormous, risky infrastructure projects don’t pay off — as often happens — recipient countries can face debt distress and become vulnerable to coercion.  In 2017, the United States National Security Strategy named “predatory” Chinese debt diplomacy as a threat to the national interest. For the last three years, senior Trump administration officials have crisscrossed the world chiding other countries for joining Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR) and lecturing them that cooperation with China doesn’t serve their interests. When Italy joined OBOR last year, the National Security Council tweeted, “Endorsing [OBOR] lends legitimacy to China’s predatory approach to investment and will bring no benefits to the Italian people.”