Funny thing is that kind of government foreign aid is the kind of soft-power over smaller countries thing that right-wingers politicians love, or at least used to. Similar to the BS that China pulls with the belt and road initiative (but probably not as bad in most instances).

Basically give/loan money, get international political support back. Use political support to bully international institutions (UN, WTO, WHO, etc) to do what you want.

I guess soft-power is not enough anymore, they want all the power.