RT is not bannd, but sanctioned due to being fully owned by the Russian government. The content they produce is not illegal, but US companies are not allowed to work with them. Stripe just wants to avoid problems and bsas them, due to Blinken claiming they are connected. That does not have to be true, but it pretty much gurantees legal trouble for Stripe, if they keep them as clients.

But also they are clearly professionals. Most employees having worked for Russian, Chinese, Iranian or Venezuelan state media is a clear sign. It also makes a direct connection to RT much more likely. So I get why Stripe wants to get far away from this.

China has been waiving no intrest loans, which can not be repaid. Debt restructuring inckuding forgiving loans is part of a debt trap too.

Beijing, which has come under criticism for its lending practices to poorer nations, accounts for almost 40% of the bilateral and private-creditor debt that the world’s poorest countries need to service this year, according to the World Bank. It has helped forge recent debt-relief agreements, participating in the Group of 20 suspension of repayments during the pandemic.

(From the Bloomberg article) The amount is certainly right and already working with the Western lenders as well.

The AlJazeera opinion piece you linked shows pretty well, what it means. After all the IMF adjustment programs were how the West was able to exploit the South. China is starting to take part in that exact process.

Obviously those are just loans. Do you seriously believe they sign documents named “debt traps”?

https://nation.africa/oped/opinion/Kenya-must-avoid-China-debt-trap-or-fall-into-Sri-Lanka-pit/440808-4551200-kv7y59/index.html

https://www.news24.com/fin24/Economy/South-Africa/da-demands-details-of-r370bn-chinese-loan-warns-of-debt-trap-20180916

For example, but that took me a minute to find. Just asking for proof does not work, when the other site is unable to argue its case beyond “I looked into it”. Not even an unsourced explanation of how Cowbee came to the cconclusion. Only that it is supposed to be “obvious”.

I doubt I get a reply from Cowbee due to that.

So you consider North Korea or Eritrea to be better then the US? Seriously?

Can you proof China is not debt traping poor countries?

It is very easy to call the US the worst country, when you ignore the bad other countries commit.

China is currently debt trapping most of Africa. They pretty much appointed the current dictator of Zimbawe for example.

The way I look at good and bad is on a scale. Whenever a country makes the life for the average human better in terms of material well being, but also political freedom, that is a good thing. Whenever they make those things worse then it is bad.

A huge reason the US is the country doing so many bad things, is that nearly nobody else can. Any large scale war between two countries in recent times had the US being the agressor or the US intervening massivly. Iraq was done after invading Kuwait and Russia despute having nukes and a resilient economy is not liking it either.

So we have to look at what countries choose to do with the power they have and the US is not the worst in that metric.

Looking at the countries currently trying to replace the US none of them are better. Russia an Iran are pretty obvious. China is already working hard on enslaving the poorest countries in the world. For most of the rest the US Empire falling apart, just means local dictators continue their rule.

Add to that the violence of the conflicts and I gurantee you very few will celebrate that collapse.

Empires breaking up tends to be extremely violent. Just look at what happened during the collapse of the European empires.

Also what replaces them is not necessarily better. Not all evil comes from the US. Other countries are perfectly able of horrible stuff as well.

Good move too, as it reminded a lot of people to bring their ID.