19th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Abusive practices in global economic expansion
The Honorable Brent McIntosh made remarks regarding adversarial practices in economic expansion. He talked about foreign adversaries’ efforts to acquire American businesses in sensitive sectors for noncommercial reasons, including businesses that hold Americans’ sensitive personal data. He also discussed the state of sovereign borrowing and suggested improvements.
What do we need to do?
- We need a multilateral efforts of likeminded countries to combat adversarial foreign investment. We need share best practices and lessons learned in investment screening, as well as information on threats and adversary tactics. Through this all, we must be very vigilant.
- As to sovereign debt, both borrowing countries and lending countries must know we are paying attention to the terms of their arrangements. Ensuring that the IMF, the World Bank, and countries such as the United States have visibility into developing countries’ sovereign debt situations helps ensure that those countries do not find themselves subject to predatory terms or fall into unsustainable debt profiles.
- Take away?
It is critical to continue to advance sustainability and transparency in sovereign debt, just as it is essential that we continue to bolster out investment screening mechanisms to thwart adversarial foreign investment.
