Twenty-five years ago, this committee was instrumental in putting forward the Heavily Indebted Poor Country initiative (or “HIPC”) to relieve the debt burdens of 37 poor countries when it became clear that they could no longer sustainably service this debt. At the time, the United States agreed to forgive nearly $2.5 billion in debt owed to US government agencies, making it one of the largest of the 55 creditor countries to participate. Little noticed at the time: Costa Rica was a bigger creditor to poor countries than was China.