For this countrys entire history, maintaining confidence in its debt has been a major priority, and achieved substantial public and political support. Even when major differences on certain facets of a solution arose, rational political leaders worked out compromises to preserve confidence that America would meet its financial obligations. In my 2007 book, The Price of Liberty: Paying for Americas Wars, I described how, despite periods of political division, the U.S. has always faithfully met its financial commitments, often by making historic compromises.

As the current debate over whether to honor the existing federal debt continues in a deeply partisan fashion, some view default with complacency, while others relish the prospect of a prolonged confrontation. There is reason to become alarmed about the catastrophic implications of both approaches.

To put this in better perspective, it would be wise to look back at our countrys history, especially as it relates to the Constitution, to reflect on why honoring our debt has been so crucial. Those who oppose a compromise that fulfills the governments obligation dont understand the unprecedented collapse in trust in our government that would result if we fail to meet our national obligations, as well as its far-reaching consequences for finance, foreign policy, and national security 

There were earlier periods in history when the country was divided on whether to pay our debts. The first was over which debts the new government under the current constitution would be responsible for after the Revolution.

Large debts had been accumulated by the nations predecessor government, operating under the failed Articles of Confederation (1781 to 1787). Yet Americas leaders ultimately agreed that debts incurred by that previous government should be repaid. To underscore the credibility of this commitmentand promote trust in the new governmentthey decided that nothing short of including that obligation in the Constitution would be sufficient.

The Framers included a provision in Article 6 asserting that all debts contractedbefore the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. This reinforced foreign and domestic trust in the new governments financial commitments. It was seen as critical to ensure confidence in the debt that government would issue. 

The main debt-related issue of the period, however, went beyond this. It centered on whether the newly established nation should assume the debts that the colonies had incurred in raising troops to fight the war. 

Hamilton made the case that it should. He argued that this would demonstrate to the world that the newly established United States was indeed united in meeting its obligations. If several states remained in default, the country would be unable to obtain the large amounts of foreign capital it needed to grow after the war. Many southern states, including the most powerful of these, Virginia, had already repaid their debts. They objected to the new federal government repaying the debt of several northern states that had not yet paid theirs.

If the country remained divided on this issue, Hamilton argued, and some states defaulted, its overall credit would be impaired. And its reliability regarding other issues also would be badly damaged. It would damage Americas reputation in a Europe that was still not sure it could take the newly born frontier nation on the other side of the Atlantic seriouslyor grant it the respect that it sought.

In the end, a compromise was reached. The federal government would assume all state debts. In return, the northern states would agree that the new capital, then temporarily housed in New York, would be re-established in the Southon a parcel of land including small parts of Virginia and Marylandnow known as Washington D.C.

This compromise opened the way for the investment of large sums of foreign capital in America over the next several decades to build the railways, canals, banks, and factories that formed the economic bedrock of the new nation.

The next major debt crisis occurred after the Civil War.

The Union had borrowed enormous amounts from its own citizens and abroad to fight the war. There were widespread doubts in this country and abroad as to whether it could, or would, repay. The Unions interest payments alone were twice the size of the entire national budget before the war.

Americas leaders recognized the severe impact on the countrys economic future if the U.S. defaultedand the grave damage its political credibility would suffer. They understood why Hamilton had cautioned against default decades earlierand recognized the enormous economic benefits the country had derived from fully paying the nations Revolutionary War debt. They also understood that for Americas post-Civil War commitment to be credible, especially in the face of pressures from those who opposed repaying or servicing the debt, its promise had to be given the highest level of credibilityby being, once again, included in the Constitution.

The relevant language was included in the most important amendment of allthe 14th Amendment. Specifically: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized in law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bonuses for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion (i.e., the Civil War) shall not be questioned.

Again, the goal was not only to demonstrate the financial credibility of the nation but also to demonstrate strong national unity in doing soand thus bolster international respect for the country. The new language, under the amendment process, had the support of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and three-fourths of the states had ratified it, which reinforced the unity of the country around a shared commitment, despite the near split up of the nation as the result of the Civil War only a few years earlier.

Those members of Congress and the American public today who ignore the consequences of default because they see it as a useful threat to get their way in Washington on other issues or tout the toughness of their ideologies should draw on these lessons of history. While curbing future increases in the nations debtwhich has grown rapidly and must be restrained periodicallyis important, threatening default as a source of leverage uses an irresponsible tool for advancing these otherwise responsible goals.

An America that fails to keep its word and pay its debts as it attempts to borrow the formidable amounts of money the government will need to continue to operate will find itself the target of deep distrust abroad. It would push interest rates up and impose a heavier burden on current American taxpayersand an even greater one on future generations. 

A country so bitterly divided over a principle that has been at the very core of its sound governance and constitution for over two centuries will be seen as a far less reliable allyand its credibility will be badly damaged throughout the world. If we do not keep our word when it comes to paying our debt, other countries will question whether we can keep our word on anything at all. Washingtons efforts to build strong alliances and friendships anchored by trust in America would be dealt a major setback.

A reckless departure from our time-honored financial principles will deal this country a double blow: to its economy and global leadership. And it could take years to recover from that. 

Robert Hormats is a former Under Secretary of State for Economic, Growth, Energy, and the Environment, and the author of The Price of Liberty: Paying for Americas Wars.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel. And its draining foreign currency reserves these countries use to pay interest on those loans, leaving some with just months before that money is gone.

Behind the scenes is Chinas reluctance to forgive debt and its extreme secrecy about how much money it has loaned and on what terms, which has kept other major lenders from stepping in to help. On top of that is the recent discovery that borrowers have been forced to put cash in hidden escrow accounts that push China to the front of the line of creditors to be paid.

Countries in APs analysis had as much as 50% of their foreign loans from China and most were devoting more than a third of government revenue to paying off foreign debt. Two of them, Zambia and Sri Lanka, have already gone into default, unable to make even interest payments on loans financing the construction of ports, mines and power plants.

In Pakistan, millions of textile workers have been laid off because the country has too much foreign debt and cant afford to keep the electricity on and machines running.

In Kenya, the government has held back paychecks to thousands of civil service workers to save cash to pay foreign loans. The presidents chief economic adviser tweeted last month, Salaries or default? Take your pick.

Since Sri Lanka defaulted a year ago, a half-million industrial jobs have vanished, inflation has pierced 50% and more than half the population in many parts of the country has fallen into poverty.

Experts predict that unless China begins to soften its stance on its loans to poor countries, there could be a wave of more defaults and political upheavals.

In a lot of the world, the clock has hit midnight, said Harvard economist Ken Rogoff.  China has moved in and left this geopolitical instability that could have long-lasting effects.

HOW ITS PLAYING OUT

A case study of how it has played out is in Zambia, a landlocked country of 20 million people in southern Africa that over the past two decades has borrowed billions of dollars from Chinese state-owned banks to build dams, railways and roads.

The loans boosted Zambias economy but also raised foreign interest payments so high there was little left for the government, forcing it to cut spending on healthcare, social services and subsidies to farmers for seed and fertilizer.

In the past under such circumstances, big government lenders such as the U.S., Japan and France would work out deals to forgive some debt, with each lender disclosing clearly what they were owed and on what terms so no one would feel cheated.

But China didnt play by those rules. It refused at first to even join in multinational talks, negotiating separately with Zambia and insisting on confidentiality that barred the country from telling non-Chinese lenders the terms of the loans and whether China had devised a way of muscling to the front of the repayment line.

Amid this confusion in 2020, a group of non-Chinese lenders refused desperate pleas from Zambia to suspend interest payments, even for a few months. That refusal added to the drain on Zambias foreign cash reserves, the stash of mostly U.S. dollars that it used to pay interest on loans and to buy major commodities like oil. By November 2020, with little reserves left, Zambia stopped paying the interest and defaulted, locking it out of future borrowing and setting off a vicious cycle of spending cuts and deepening poverty.

Inflation in Zambia has since soared 50%, unemployment has hit a 17-year high and the nations currency, the kwacha, has lost 30% of its value in just seven months. A United Nations estimate of Zambians not getting enough food has nearly tripled so far this year, to 3.5 million.

I just sit in the house thinking what I will eat because I have no money to buy food, said Marvis Kunda, a blind 70-year-old widow in Zambias Luapula province whose welfare payments were recently slashed. Sometimes I eat once a day and if no one remembers to help me with food from the neighborhood, then I just starve.

A few months after Zambia defaulted, researchers found that it owed $6.6 billion to Chinese state-owned banks, double what many thought at the time and about a third of the countrys total debt.

Were flying blind, said Brad Parks, executive director of AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary that has uncovered thousands of secret Chinese loans and assisted the AP in its analysis. When you look under the cushions of the couch, suddenly you realize, Oh, theres a lot of stuff we missed. And actually things are much worse.

DEBT AND UPHEAVAL

Chinas unwillingness to take big losses on the hundreds of billions of dollars it is owed, as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have urged, has left many countries on a treadmill of paying back interest, which stifles the economic growth that would help them pay off the debt.

Foreign cash reserves have dropped in 10 of the dozen countries in APs analysis, down an average 25% in just a year. They have plunged more than 50% in Pakistan and the Republic of Congo. Without a bailout, several countries have only months left of foreign cash to pay for food, fuel and other essential imports. Mongolia has eight months left. Pakistan and Ethiopia about two.

As soon as the financing taps are turned off, the adjustment takes place right away, said Patrick Curran, senior economist at researcher Tellimer. The economy contracts, inflation spikes up, food and fuel become unaffordable.

Mohammad Tahir, who was laid off six months ago from his job at a textile factory in the Pakistani city of Multan, says he has contemplated suicide because he can no longer bear to see his family of four go to bed night after night without dinner.

Ive been facing the worst kind of poverty, said Tahir, who was recently told Pakistans foreign cash reserves have depleted so much that it was now unable to import raw materials for his factory. I have no idea when we would get our jobs back.

Poor countries have been hit with foreign currency shortages, high inflation, spikes in unemployment and widespread hunger before, but rarely like in the past year.

Along with the usual mix of government mismanagement and corruption are two unexpected and devastating events: the war in Ukraine, which has sent prices of grain and oil soaring, and the U.S. Federal Reserves decision to raise interest rates 10 times in a row, the latest this month. That has made variable rate loans to countries suddenly much more expensive.

All of it is roiling domestic politics and upending strategic alliances.

In March, heavily indebted Honduras cited financial pressures in its decision to establish formal diplomatic ties to China and sever those with Taiwan.

Last month, Pakistan was so desperate to prevent more blackouts that it struck a deal to buy discounted oil from Russia, breaking ranks with the U.S.-led effort to shut off Vladimir Putins funds.

In Sri Lanka, rioters poured into the streets last July, setting homes of government ministers aflame and storming the presidential palace, sending the leader tied to onerous deals with China fleeing the country.

CHINAS RESPONSE

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement to the AP, disputed the notion that China is an unforgiving lender and echoed previous statements putting the blame on the Federal Reserve. It said that if it is to accede to IMF and World Bank demands to forgive a portion of its loans, so do those multilateral lenders, which it views as U.S. proxies.

We call on these institutions to actively participate in relevant actions in accordance with the principle of joint action, fair burden and make greater contributions to help developing countries tide over the difficulties, the ministry statement said.

China argues it has offered relief in the form of extended loan maturities and emergency loans, and as the biggest contributor to a program to temporarily suspend interest payments during the coronavirus pandemic. It also says it has forgiven 23 no-interest loans to African countries, though AidDatas Parks said such loans are mostly from two decades ago and amount to less than 5% of the total it has lent.

In high-level talks in Washington last month, China was considering dropping its demand that the IMF and World Bank forgive loans if the two lenders would make commitments to offer grants and other help to troubled countries, according to various news reports. But in the weeks since there has been no announcement and both lenders have expressed frustration with Beijing.

My view is that we have to drag them maybe thats an impolite word we need to walk together, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said earlier this month. Because if we dont, there will be catastrophe for many, many countries.

The IMF and World Bank say taking losses on their loans would rip up the traditional playbook of dealing with sovereign crises that accords them special treatment because, unlike Chinese banks, they already finance at low rates to help distressed countries get back on their feet. The Chinese foreign ministry noted, however, that the two multilateral lenders have made an exception to the rules in the past, forgiving loans to many countries in the mid-1990s to save them from collapse.

As time runs out, some officials are urging concessions.

Ashfaq Hassan, a former debt official at Pakistans Ministry of Finance, said his countrys debt burden is too heavy and time too short for the IMF and World Bank to hold out. He also called for concessions from private investment funds that lent to his country by purchasing bonds.

Every stakeholder will have to take a haircut, Hassan said.

China has also pushed back on the idea, popularized in the Trump administration, that it has engaged in debt trap diplomacy, leaving countries saddled with loans they cannot afford so that it can seize ports, mines and other strategic assets.

On this point, experts who have studied the issue in detail have sided with Beijing. Chinese lending has come from dozens of banks on the mainland and is far too haphazard and sloppy to be coordinated from the top. If anything, they say, Chinese banks are not taking losses because the timing is awful as they face big hits from reckless real estate lending in their own country and a dramatically slowing economy.

But the experts are quick to point out that a less sinister Chinese role is not a less scary one.

There is no single person in charge, said Teal Emery, a former sovereign loan analyst who now runs consulting group Teal Insights.

Adds AidDatas Parks about Beijing, Theyre kind of making it up as they go along. There is no master plan.

LOAN SLEUTH

Much of the credit for dragging Chinas hidden debt into the light goes to Parks, who over the past decade has had to contend with all manner of roadblocks, obfuscations and falsehoods from the authoritarian government.

The hunt began in 2011 when a top World Bank economist asked Parks to take over the job of looking into Chinese loans. Within months, using online data-mining techniques, Parks and a few researchers began uncovering hundreds of loans the World Bank had not known about.

China at the time was ramping up lending that would soon become part of its $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative to secure supplies of key minerals, win allies abroad and make more money off its U.S. dollar holdings. Many developing countries were eager for U.S. dollars to build power plants, roads and ports and expand mining operations.

But after a few years of straightforward Chinese government loans, those countries found themselves heavily indebted, and the optics were awful. They feared that piling more loans atop old ones would make them seem reckless to credit rating agencies and make it more expensive to borrow in the future.

So China started setting up offshore shell companies for some infrastructure projects and lent to them instead, which allowed heavily indebted countries to avoid putting that new debt on their books. Even if the loans were backed by the government, no one would be the wiser.

In Zambia, for example, a $1.5 billion loan from two Chinese banks to a shell company to build a giant hydroelectric dam didnt appear on the countrys books for years.

In Indonesia, a Chinese loan of $4 billion to help it build a railway also never appeared on public government accounts. That all changed years later when, overbudget by $1.5 billion, the Indonesian government was forced to bail out the railroad twice.

When these projects go bad, what was advertised as a private debt becomes a public debt, Parks said. There are projects all over the globe like this.

In 2021, a decade after Parks and his team began their hunt, they had gathered enough information for a blockbuster finding: Chinas hidden loans amounted to at least $385 billion in 88 countries, and many of those countries were in far worse shape than anyone knew.

Among the disclosures was that Laos was on the hook for a $3.5 billion Chinese loan to build a railway system, which would take nearly a quarter of countrys annual output to pay off.

Another AidData report around the same time suggested that many Chinese loans go to projects in areas of countries favored by powerful politicians and frequently right before key elections. Some of the things built made little economic sense and were riddled with problems.

In Sri Lanka, a Chinese-funded airport built in the presidents hometown away from most of the countrys population is so barely used that elephants have been spotted wandering on its tarmac.

Cracks are appearing in hydroelectric plants in Uganda and Ecuador, where in March the government got judicial approval for corruption charges tied to the project against a former president now in exile.

In Pakistan, a power plant had to be shut down for fear it could collapse. In Kenya, the last key miles of a railway were never built due to poor planning and a lack of funds.

JUMPING TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE

As Parks dug into the details of the loans, he found something alarming: Clauses mandating that borrowing countries deposit U.S. dollars or other foreign currency in secret escrow accounts that Beijing could raid if those countries stopped paying interest on their loans.

In effect, China had jumped to the front of the line to get paid without other lenders knowing.

In Uganda, Parks revealed a loan to expand the main airport included an escrow account that could hold more than $15 million. A legislative probe blasted the finance minister for agreeing to such terms, with the lead investigator saying he should be prosecuted and jailed.

Parks is not sure how many such accounts have been set up, but governments insisting on any kind of collateral, much less collateral in the form of hard cash, is rare in sovereign lending. And their very existence has rattled non-Chinese banks, bond investors and other lenders and made them unwilling to accept less than theyre owed.

The other creditors are saying, Were not going to offer anything if China is, in effect, at the head of the repayment line, Parks said. It leads to paralysis. Everyone is sizing each other up and saying, Am I going to be a chump here?

LOANS AS CURRENCY EXCHANGES

Meanwhile, Beijing has taken on a new kind of hidden lending that has added to the confusion and distrust. Parks and others found that Chinas central bank has effectively been lending tens of billions of dollars through what appear as ordinary foreign currency exchanges.

Foreign currency exchanges, called swaps, allow countries to essentially borrow more widely used currencies like the U.S. dollar to plug temporary shortages in foreign reserves. They are intended for liquidity purposes, not to build things, and last for only a few months.

But Chinas swaps mimic loans by lasting years and charging higher-than-normal interest rates. And importantly, they dont show up on the books as loans that would add to a countrys debt total.

Mongolia has taken out $5.4 billion in such swaps, an amount equivalent to 14% of its total debt. Pakistan took out nearly $11 billion in three years and Laos has borrowed $600 million.

The swaps can help stave off default by replenishing currency reserves, but they pile more loans on top of old ones and can make a collapse much worse, akin to what happened in the runup to 2009 financial crisis when U.S. banks kept offering ever-bigger mortgages to homeowners who couldnt afford the first one.

Some poor countries struggling to repay China now find themselves stuck in a kind of loan limbo: China wont budge in taking losses, and the IMF wont offer low-interest loans if the money is just going to pay interest on Chinese debt.

For Chad and Ethiopia, its been more than a year since IMF rescue packages were approved in so-called staff-level agreements, but nearly all the money has been withheld as negotiations among its creditors drag on.

Youve got a growing number of countries that are in dire financial straits, said Parks, attributing it largely to Chinas stunning rise in just a generation from being a net recipient of foreign aid to the worlds largest creditor.

Somehow theyve managed to do all of this out of public view, he said. So unless people understand how China lends, how its lending practices work, were never going to solve these crises.

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa asked U.S. District Judge William Conley last week to issue an emergency ruling forcing Enbridge to shut down the Line 5 pipeline after large chunks of riverbank running alongside it were washed away by the river in northern Wisconsin.

The tribe says less than 15 feet (4.6 meters) of land now stands between the Bad River and Line 5 in four locations on the reservation. In some places, more than 20 feet (6 meters) of riverbank has eroded in the past month alone. Experts and environmental advocates have warned in court that an exposed section of pipeline would be weakened and could rupture at any time, causing massive oil spills.

Enbridges engineers contend that there is almost no chance the pipeline will be exposed by erosion, let alone rupture, in the next year. The company said in court filings that the tribe hasnt cooperated with its requests to line the riverbank with sandbags that would protect against erosion.

Enbridge also asked the tribe on Monday for a permit to install stabilizing barricades made of trees along the riverbank.

The Bad River tribe sued Enbridge in 2019 to force the company to remove the roughly 12-mile (19-kilometer) section of Line 5 that crosses tribal lands, saying that the 70-year-old pipeline is dangerous and that land agreements allowing Enbridge to operate on the reservation expired in 2013.

Conley sided with the tribe last September, saying Enbridge was trespassing on the reservation and must compensate the tribe for illegally using its land. But he wouldnt order Enbridge to remove the pipeline due to concerns about what a shutdown might do to the economy of the Great Lakes region.

Instead, Conley ordered Enbridge and tribal leaders to create an emergency shutoff plan for the pipeline last November, saying there was a significant risk it could burst and cause catastrophic damage to the reservation and its water supply.

Line 5 transports up to 23 million gallons (about 87 million liters) of oil and liquid natural gas each day and stretches 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) from the city of Superior through northern Wisconsin and Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario. If the pipeline were shut down, gas prices would likely increase, refineries would shut down, workers would be laid off and the upper Midwest could see years of propane shortages, according to reports Enbridge submitted in court.

Enbridge has proposed a 41-mile (66-kilometer) reroute of the pipeline to end its dispute with the tribe and said in court filings that the project would take less than six years to complete. But the Department of Natural Resources has not granted the permits Enbridge needs to begin construction. A draft analysis of the projects environmental impact submitted in December 2021 received thousands of public comments, with many criticizing the report as insufficient. The company is still responding to the DNRs requests for more information.

Line 5 has also faced resistance in Michigan, where Enbridge wants to drill a new tunnel under a strait connecting two of the Great Lakes but Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have sought to shut down the pipeline. Nessel filed a brief on Wednesday in support of the tribes request, saying a rupture in Wisconsin would also cause irreparable environmental damage in Michigan.

During the first full year of the pandemic in 2021, more than half of the 20 largest U.S. metro areas lost residents, and all U.S. metro areas grew by just 0.1%, as fear of the virus sent residents fleeing the most densely-populated urban areas and the popularity of remote work allowed people to live far from their workplaces.

By comparison, only eight of the 20 largest metro areas decreased in 2022, and the growth rate for all U.S. metros was 0.4%. Among the largest U.S. metros that had gains in 2022 after experiencing losses in 2021 were Washington, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Seattle, Minneapolis and San Diego, according to 2022 population estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area grew the most among U.S. metros, jumping by six-digit figures for a second consecutive year, as it gained another 170,000 residents last year. Metro Dallas-Fort Worths 7.9 million residents made it the nations fourth-largest metropolitan area, behind only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, all of which lost population last year but with much smaller losses compared to the first year of the pandemic.

Other metropolitan areas which saw the largest growth in number were Houston, adding more than 124,000 residents; Atlanta, with almost 79,000 new residents; Phoenix, with an additional nearly 73,000 people; and Orlando, Florida, adding almost 65,000 new residents.

Metro Phoenix also surpassed the 5 million-person threshold for the first time last year.

There were other signs that 2021s pandemic-related migration changed a year later.

Boise Idaho and Provo, Utah two metros that were popular destinations in 2021 for residents fleeing the West Coasts most populous cities dropped out of the top 20 in population growth in 2022.

By that same token, smaller communities known as micropolitan statistical areas grew by 0.1% last year compared to 0.2% in 2021.

Metropolitan statistical areas consist of one or more counties containing a central city with a population of at least 50,000 residents that together have a high degree of economic and social connections. The central city in a micropolitan statistical area must have at least 10,000 residents but no more than 50,000 residents.

Population change is driven by migration, including within U.S. borders as people move around and internationally as people arrive from abroad. It is also dependent on a communitys number of births and deaths. Thursdays data release doesnt show the reasons behind population changes, but similar data at the county level released in March showed it was mostly driven by international migration.

Individually, cities that make up the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area were among those that grew the most in the U.S. last year. With 19,100 new residents, the city of Forth Worth led the nation, followed by the city Phoenix with more than 19,000 additional residents and the city of San Antonio, Texas, with more than 18,800 residents gained.

Two other cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area Dallas and Frisco also were among those whose numbers most dramatically spiked, jumping respectively by 8,800 residents and 8,500 residents. These new residents were lured by a strong economy, mild winters and good schools.

The Villages, Florida, a relatively new retirement community northwest of Orlando, was the fastest-growing U.S. metro area between 2021 and 2022, increasing by 7.5%.