How to Use foreign debt in a Sentence

foreign debt

noun
  • China owns about 10% of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, which exceeds $51 billion.
    Krishan Francis, ajc, 8 Mar. 2023
  • This has not proved fatal in the Sri Lankan case, since Chinese debt accounts for only about ten percent of the country’s foreign debt and an even smaller share of the debt that must be serviced this year.
    Shantayanan Devarajan, Foreign Affairs, 4 Aug. 2022
  • The country of 105 million people is sinking under foreign debt and contending with a severe shortage of hard currency.
    Claire Parker, Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2023
  • As a last resort, the government defaults on its foreign debt of $51 billion after running out of foreign exchange to import essential goods.
    Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 21 Mar. 2023
  • In other cases, governments simply opted to default rather than make the painful cuts to social programs that would have been necessary to service their foreign debt on schedule.
    Shantayanan Devarajan, Foreign Affairs, 4 Aug. 2022
  • And before embarking on their development agenda, they have been forced to contend with Pakistan’s crippling foreign debt.
    Madiha Afzal, Foreign Affairs, 13 Feb. 2019
  • Sri Lanka is struggling with the worst financial crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948 after the country’s foreign exchange hit record lows and triggered its first foreign debt default last year.
    Reuters, CNN, 28 June 2023
  • Sudan’s economy has been battered by hyperinflation and weighed down by massive foreign debt.
    John Hudson, Washington Post, 16 Apr. 2023
  • Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis in history and has suspended foreign debt repayments.
    Alex Turnbull, ajc, 1 May 2023
  • Ethiopia wants to restructure its looming foreign debt and to redeploy federal troops to contain a spreading insurgency in Oromiya, its most populous province and the political heartland for Abiy.
    John Hudson, Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2023
  • The company defaulted on its foreign debt in late 2021, and has since been embroiled in a difficult negotiation with international bondholders.
    Alexander Saeedy, WSJ, 27 Feb. 2023
  • The current administration has strongly favored India, but many Maldivians worry about Indian military presence on their shores, as well as mounting foreign debt.
    Sushmita Pathak, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Sep. 2023
  • Lebanon’s economic meltdown, brought on when the government defaulted on its foreign debt and the currency collapsed, triggered months of protests demanding deep political reforms and accountability from corrupt sectarian elites.
    Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Sep. 2023
  • How President Alberto Fernández handles Argentina’s foreign debt crisis will define his legacy.
    Bruno Binetti, Foreign Affairs, 9 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'foreign debt.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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