US lawmakers move to counter China’s debt diplomacy in Africa

US lawmakers want to counter China’s growing influence in Africa in what is shaping up to be a duel between the two economic giants scrambling for a slice of the continent. 

In a letter sent to US Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin and his counterpart from the State Department, Michael Pompeo, 16 senators warned that China’s growing influence in Africa through crippling debt agreements threatened America’s economic and national security interests on the continent.