You’ve said you fell in love with Africa on your first tour in Nigeria, and you went on to serve as ambassador to both Sierra Leone and Lesotho. One of the biggest projects from your time there was the $300 million Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) for Health and Horticulture. Despite MCC being separate from USAID, it was frozen by the January 2025 USAID pause and then terminated, with only about $2 million spent. What happened, and what did that do to Lesotho’s trust in the United States?

As someone who was there for the signing of the Compact, and who left in early 2024, before it was paused, I can tell you that hearing it had been discontinued was heartbreaking.

The Compact would have created a lot of opportunity. In Lesotho, there isn’t enough meaningful work to really sustain life, and many working-age people leave for South Africa or other countries. Some are even trafficked illegally to other parts of the world. A lot of the agriculture is subsistence only; people can barely feed themselves and their families. The Compact was designed to turn subsistence agriculture into agricultural businesses and markets. It would have provided ways for people to access water and bring their goods to market, turning farming into an actual business. Tourism, restaurants, and other industries would have grown as a result. The Compact would have raised the standard of living for a lot of people.

When the United States walks away from its commitments, others are more likely not to trust us. When the Compact began, the government of Lesotho stood up an MCC organization. Both American staff and local staff supported the work. Those relationships have been severed and broken. If we were to go back with a different project several years from now, those connections and trust would be gone. 

The idea of MCC makes a lot of sense. If we, the U.S. government, are going to invest in a country, we want to see that the money will be spent well. MCC has a list of 20 indicators we use to decide whether a country is investing in its own people: ease of doing business, schooling rates, health care, corruption levels. If we see that this government is taking the right steps to invest in its own people, the United States will come with a compact: a big project, funded by a grant, that will help raise the standard of living.

Unfortunately, we do see a lot of compacts not move forward. It takes a long time for compacts to be enacted, and governments can change in the meantime. In this case, the execution fell apart, for a variety of reasons, including the United States deciding to step back from large infrastructure projects. But it hurts, and it’s going to hurt moving forward. Not just the people in Lesotho, but also people all over the world will ask: Do the Americans mean what they say? Or will they find a reason to walk back from these commitments?

That Compact was a grant, and Lesotho put in $22 million of its own. Meanwhile, the Mafeteng solar plant, finished while you were there, was built with a $70 million loan from China’s Export-Import (Exim) Bank, and a second $79 million loan is being considered. What are the implications for a country like Lesotho when aid shifts from grants to loans and from USAID to China?

Grants are always better. It’s like being a college student: a scholarship or a federal grant is so much better than a loan. The terms you sign today may sound okay, but 10, 15, or 20 years down the road, you may find yourself in a different position, dealing with a huge debt.

When I was a new foreign service officer 30 years ago, we were looking for ways to help highly indebted countries shed some of their debt, because it was limiting their ability to invest in their own people through infrastructure and education projects. Globally, we had worked to move away from this kind of debt. Now, in 2026, a lot of countries are carrying that debt, Lesotho among them.

What concerns a lot of us is that the terms of these loans are sometimes not public. Sometimes we hear that concessions are being given on mining, access to construction jobs, or preferential treatment for Chinese companies or whoever the lender is. There can also be corruption concerns. If there was no public tender process, what happened behind the scenes? Did money change hands? Are the people of Lesotho truly getting the value that was paid? Governments are supposed to exist not for their own enrichment, but for the advancement of their people.

UN votes, World Bank votes, and other multilateral decisions can sometimes be affected by these kinds of loans. The influence and access these loans can extract affect not just global development, but global politics. That is one of the hidden costs that isn’t so obvious up front.

Of course, Chinese financing can help build infrastructure, which African countries need, and China is willing to finance it where other partners, including the United States, are not. But loans have to be repaid, and that can take decades. So what are the interest rates? What are the guarantees? Who selects the contractors? What are the terms of the contracts? Construction is a major issue, because China would bring in Chinese laborers rather than hiring locally, and African governments would allow it because they were getting favorable loan terms. As this became more public and people complained, some countries pushed back. They wanted a certain ratio of local to international hires and guarantees of skills transfer. For the MCC Compact, we were very careful to ensure that skills transfer was happening. We wanted to leave behind not just physical structures but knowledge that could be passed along.

On the Ha Mpiti to Sehlabathebe road, the Exim Bank loan meant the bank chose the contractor, with no tender process in Lesotho. The project has had delays, local protests, and labor abuse allegations from Lesotho journalists. If Chinese loans replace American grants, do the people of Lesotho have a say in who builds things and how?

As foreigners, we have a certain amount of access and influence, and we can use the tools of diplomacy to push these issues. But ultimately, we have to count on the people of the country, including civil society, voters, and everyday people who live and work there, to ask these questions and demand accountability from their elected officials.

Lesotho has an elected prime minister and a parliament. There is a king, but his role is largely ceremonial, much like the King of England. In Sesotho, there is a saying: a king is a king by his people. A ruler can’t rule alone. The people give the ruler authority, and that authority comes with responsibility to the people. We see that principle even in a monarchy.

When I was ambassador, we encouraged civil society to take an active role in holding their elected officials accountable. But it is difficult, because these deals aren’t done in the light of day. It often isn’t obvious what’s happening until after the fact. That’s where journalists, protests, and even parliamentarians exercising oversight come in.

People would often talk about the government as if it were a separate entity. I would remind them that the government is made up of people they elect. They work for you. As their boss, you should ask them what they’re doing, the same way your boss asks what you’re doing at the office. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that most of Lesotho’s external debt is owed to multilateral lenders on concessional terms, and China holds about 70% of the bilateral portion. Is the debt trap worry overstated for Lesotho? Where is the real risk?

“Debt trap” gets a lot of headlines, but every country has to look at its individual debt profile, so I’m always a bit reticent about labeling things a debt trap. The potential is always there. Lesotho needs to be exacting when entering into any negotiation with any country, including China, the United States, or any multilateral lender.

On the other hand, Lesotho needs access to capital. If it isn’t getting those opportunities from country A or B, it will go to country C. I would love to see the United States step in with larger projects, perhaps through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), but those projects can take a long time to finance. And these countries’ leaders, just like ours, have to show they’re doing something before the next election, so there is a need for speed.

It’s not good for any country to depend on one other country to the exclusion of all others. At the same time, it’s very hard to criticize them for taking the loans.

Sometimes, even within the United States, we’ve allowed China to become a boogeyman, the way Russia was when I was growing up in the 1970s and ’80s. There are valid concerns. We saw what happened in Sri Lanka, where the Chinese took over the Hambantota port after the Sri Lankans defaulted on part of a loan. But in the years since Hambantota, probably 12 or 15 years ago now, we’ve seen a shift in tactics.

So rather than fixating on the symptom, which is debt accruing to one country more than others, we should look at the cause: access to capital and construction. If Americans, American companies, and the U.S. government aren’t competing, that limits our ability to criticize those who are. Rather than criticizing these loans, we should get on the field and put ourselves in play more often. That would be healthier for all of us.

After the MCC Compact ended, China handed over farm machinery, an agricultural storage facility in Maseru, and medicines to the health ministry. China’s Exim Bank also financed Lesotho’s national telecom network. As Beijing becomes Lesotho’s most visible partner, what are the implications for Lesotho’s independence in terms of its votes at the UN, its control over critical infrastructure like telecoms, and its ability to say no to Beijing?

It’s tempting for those of us watching to ascribe an overarching strategy to all of this, and maybe there is one. But what’s probably happening is that a lot of individual decisions are lining up and pointing toward a bigger picture. Chinese telecom companies are looking for markets and ways to make money, maybe not in the short term, but 20, 30, or 40 years into the future. They’re finding access in African countries where populations and needs are growing.

I used to joke that every time the Chinese handed over a napkin, they made it front-page news. Well, the Americans did the same. During the pandemic, we would hand over PPE at a ceremony with the minister of health and cut a ribbon. All countries want a public show of what they’re giving. When it comes to medicines or an agricultural storage facility, the United States did much the same thing, and still does in many countries. Sometimes something insignificant makes the front page, while a massive handover doesn’t make the news at all. So I’d take some of that coverage with a grain of salt.

Sovereignty is always a concern for other nations, as it is for ours. In this country, we have debated for decades whether being part of multilateral organizations means losing sovereignty. Countries will always act in line with what they believe is their best solution. They will never act against their own perceived interests, and “perceived” carries a lot of weight. We Americans might say a deal is against a country’s long-term self-interest, while that country sees it as in its interest and can tell you why. That’s why I’d caution against drawing too many lines. 

At the same time, we want to keep our influence. The United States has had an outsized influence on the world since World War II, and we want to keep that cachet. In my time in Africa and South Central Asia, when you asked the average person where they would want to live or work, or what country they wanted to emulate, the answer was the United States. When we were engaged, we were the partner of choice in many of these countries. So the question is whether we are engaging. Rather than pointing fingers at others, I would ask how we can engage more, and where.

You’ve touched on a tension at the heart of this. When aid is framed as a contest with China, the people it’s meant to serve are neglected; we stop asking what communities on the ground need and start asking what Beijing gains. But the rivalry is real, and both Washington and Beijing use development as an instrument of influence. If the United States keeps stepping back and China keeps stepping in with aid, what does that mean for developing countries over the next decade?

That’s a valid concern. The United States has changed its stance globally. We closed USAID entirely and shifted its responsibilities to the State Department, but we lost decades of experience and expertise in development. Our State Department colleagues now doing this work don’t have that same expertise, and they are being asked to take on yet another portfolio. So there’s a concern about how development will be carried out in this new era.

Going back to where we started, there’s also the question of whether we are a reliable partner. If one administration signs an agreement, the next backs away from it, and the one after that wants to return to it, our partners understandably suffer from whiplash. I worry about the aspirational view many people have of America, of wanting to achieve what we’ve achieved in our relatively short history as a nation. Now they’re asking themselves whether they really want to.

The American story is a strong one. We’re not a perfect country by any means, but we have a lot of good to show the world, particularly since World War II. The more we back away from that, the more we lose influence and moral authority. That loss is harder to quantify and will be harder to recover.

In some of the countries where I served, the United States may not have been the biggest donor, but when I spoke as U.S. ambassador, my words carried much more authority. In both Lesotho and Sierra Leone, the Peace Corps sent Americans, mostly young people, all over the country to help educate students. That didn’t cost billions of dollars, but it paid dividends, with decades of positive effect on how people saw the United States.

So it’s not all about dollars and cents. Sometimes it’s about relationships, the person-to-person diplomacy we talk about so often, and the idea that, as imperfect as we are, we’re trying to create good in the world. In my nearly 30 years in foreign policy, we were constantly reevaluating: What are we doing? Who are we? What is the point of foreign policy? I hope that conversation will once again include the question of what we can achieve beyond dollars and cents.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this interview are solely those of Maria Brewer and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government or any past or present administration.