I think the issue could be broadly defined as how difficult it is how difficult it is to take someone else's code and use it as part of your project. For C/C++ the answer can be completely trivial to a massive pain in the ass.
If it's another Cmake project, that's the happy path. Easy peasy. If it's not you still have the ability to run ./configure && make or evoke whatever incantation is in the dependency's requirements. I'm not the hugest fan of cmake, but I've worked with it quite a bit and it's a much more pleasant story than other languages I've used a lot like python, JavaScript, OCaml (which I love), etc.
I do find rust and go dependency management a little simpler due to the prescribed nature of them, but once you get off the happy path, the flexibility of C land is tough to beat. It sort of matches the language stories themselves; you have more control and have to do a bit more yourself. It's all about trade offs.