“When IMF programs are designed primarily to restore market confidence, protect repayment flows, or normalize access to capital markets, they can undermine domestic legitimacy. Citizens experience the program not as reform but as external discipline, fueling social unrest, anti-democratic backlash, and suspicion of Washington-backed institutions.”
A new policy brief on “debt traps”, published by the Global South Policy Hub in Washington DC concludes that “the United States cannot credibly champion democracy, liberty, self-determination, and the rule of law abroad while supporting debt restructuring frameworks that systematically erode the fiscal and democratic sovereignty in the Global South.”
Read the whole essay by Fadhel Kaboub here: https://gsphub.org/publications/global-south-debt-crises-are-driven-by-structural-debt-traps
