Agreed, I would rather a foreign agency with no power or authority over me to have my personal data than a government that has the authority to wrongfully tax, investigate, jail, prosecute, and imprison me for that same data.
You should choose the devices that are the most secure, using the information you have available at the time.
Choosing a foreign government to spy on you rather than your own government isn't a clear choice. While a foreign government is less likely to be interested in you personally and likely less able to directly cause you harm, you also have less recourse against them than against your own government and their interests are less likely to be aligned with yours.
Additionally, your government may be able to co-opt the compromised devices anyway and would certainly have an incentive to do so.
I'd also question that a device that is by-design-compromised is otherwise secure from bad actors. It is difficult to imagine the incentive structure that would make that possible.
Finally, once this personal data has been harvested by either government, there is nothing to stop these governments or rogue elements within these governments from trading or sharing that data with your own government or other actors.
I don't chose to be spied on by any government! But if I could chose only one, it would be an opposing country like China or Russia.
American businesses are forced to share our private data witn three letter agencies. Conversely, I can't imagine any leverage, money or lawful, that would cause a Chinese citizen living in China, with families in China, to be so stupid as to collaborate with the US government in any way, unless they wish for their families to be sent to labor camps.
My data is safer with the Chinese. I don't like it, but that's where we stand with our privacy.
The problem is that the American government has shown time and time again that their interests are not in any way, shape, or form aligned with that of the public.
At this point, I’d trust a (likely) disinterested state actor over one that has been proven to be actively malicious.