I got a good close look at it in Puerto Rico when I lived there, and it was especially blatant because we controlled the place and could keep the competition out. That's called Colonialism.

And I expect it works just like every other country's foreign aid. All that crap about the "billions we give away overseas when we should be spending it right here" is just that, crap. Foreign aid always has strings attached, if not a direct quid pro quo ("you let us build a Navy base here and we'll give you some money") then its more subtle ("we'll give you some low-interest financing but you will buy from American companies and you will patronize American contractors and we will have veto power over how you spend the cash"). This isn't necessarily bad, after all, it's our money and we have a right to say how it will be spent, and to get a piece of the action, too. But neither is it charity given out of the goodness of our hearts. It's strictly business. And from the borrower's point of view, he doesn't get to shop around for the best deals.

At best, it strengthens American geopolitical and trade positions, at worst, it's a giveaway subsidy for US companies that specialize in big overseas construction projects. What's really bad is when the aid is not part of an overall economic development plan, like developing a coastline for tourism but just a deal where American companies get the construction contracts and Americans eventually wind up owning the hotels. The locals get to make the beds and pour the drinks, they don't even get a cement plant for their trouble when the aid stops flowing, so their economy has been transformed into a revenue generator for the US without helping develop local resources and industries. And of course, that airport we build for the locals, and the road to the coast, makes it easy for American tourists to get to the resorts and for their hosts to drum up business (can you say "subsidy"?). The natives get to sell souvenirs by the roadside.

Of course, we don't put a gun to their heads and make them deal with us, but we do grease some local palms and corrupt the local officials with some official and unofficial baksheesh, and they do the dirty work for us of getting the locals to get with the program. Still, it ain't just us. The Brits and the Frogs did it in their day, we did it in our time, now I guess Russia and China are going to try their hand at it.

It's called Economic Imperialsim, and it doesn't happen because evil men sit around a table and plot it all out while they cackle with glee. It isn't even a result of ideology or politics, or even greed. It is just a natural consequence of the movement of capital. It's built into the system because money flows, unlike water, from areas of scarcity to places of plenty. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.