The federal agency you’ve never heard of ripping up and replacing Chinese investments around the world

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation is a federal agency with a nondescript, perhaps even boring, name, but officials are pitching themselves to the American people as the “coolest and best government agency that you’ve never heard of.”

Founded by President Donald Trump during his first administration, the DFC was established to “combat and serve as a bulwark against” China’s Belt and Road Initiative — the CCP’s campaign to bolster geopolitical power through infrastructure investments in places such as Africa and Central Asia.

“Belt and Road — and its Digital Silk Road — is in 146 different countries. So I think there’s a lot of territory to cover,” DFC CEO Ben Black, who is set to testify in front of the House foreign affairs committee Wednesday, told the Washington Examiner during an interview.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance hold a swearing-in ceremony for Ben Black, CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and John Jovanovic, chairman of Exim Bank, on Friday, December 12, 2025. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok, provided by U.S. International Development Finance Corporation)

The agency’s strategy is straightforward. Officials investigate and scrutinize private investment opportunities in areas of interest around the globe. When they identify a project that looks like it could turn a profit while edifying U.S. soft power in that area, they search for local partners to make it happen and invest.

“We are for-profit, so our deals have to make money, and we bring in local partners to do just that,” Black said. “There is a lot in Africa who do that. I’d also say we’re really leaning into Central Asia, which has been territory that we’ve let go unnoticed and untouched for a long time, and there’s a lot of interest to work with us there and a lot of desire to lean into the United States.”

The DFC has poured money into projects ranging from Brazilian mining deals to a maritime reinsurance plan in the Strait of Hormuz.

This is not intended to be an Americanized version of the Belt and Road Initiative. It’s an entirely different model with an entirely different philosophy because the U.S. believes that Beijing’s strategy isn’t working out.

The Belt and Road was launched by Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping in 2013 as a multi-pronged global development program that would expand China’s influence and growth in neglected regions in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Chinese workers have been shipped out to countries as far as South Africa, Portugal, and Chile to construct railways, set up economic investment zones, and modernize tech industries.

The initiative has chalked up a list of major success stories, such as the China-Europe Railway Express, which shortened shipping to major European cities by weeks. There is also the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connected the two nations through airports, highways, maritime ports, and thousands of miles of highway.

But some countries and international bodies warn that China is using the BRI to conduct “debt trap diplomacy,” a concept explained by Chatham House as “luring poor, developing countries into agreeing unsustainable loans to pursue infrastructure projects so that, when they experience financial difficulty, Beijing can seize the asset, thereby extending its strategic or military reach.”

Hambantota International Port in Sri Lanka is among the most notable casualties of China’s high-interest construction loans. The Sri Lankan government, crushed by debt, settled its BRI outstanding debts to Beijing by leasing over control of the port for 99 years.

A worker rests between billboards that read ”Construction of the Serbian-Hungarian railway” in Belgrade, Serbia, on Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Other issues arise from the fact that China approaches these projects in a unilateral manner. Chinese workers from Chinese companies are shipped in to complete projects and then are immediately returned to their homeland or shipped elsewhere for another project. Others stay behind and maintain the infrastructure in perpetuity. This means that the locals are sometimes iced out of learning the crucial skills necessary to develop and maintain this infrastructure without the Chinese.

“BRI projects are tied to Chinese contractors and conducted through a largely closed bidding process,” according to a report from the Council on Foreign Relations. “Because Chinese workers do most of the construction and then operate the newly built facilities, the transfer of know-how and training of local workers is limited.”

Black mentioned this dynamic when he recalled a taxi ride he took years ago in Rwanda. His driver told him how much the locals loved Americans. It was a comment he didn’t take very seriously as a tourist ripe for flattery. But then he said the rider, unprompted, professed how much the same locals hated the Chinese — as they were driving on a road built as part of the BRI.

“I go, ‘But [the Chinese] built you this road. Are you just telling me that because I’m American?’” Black recalled. “He goes, ‘No, because what happens is they come in and build this road. They use all their own workers. They don’t eat in our restaurants. They don’t drink in our bars. They don’t trade with us. They don’t interact whatsoever. They don’t put money into the economy.’”

Black derided this as a “pure, fundamentally, extractive model” that doesn’t sit well with those ostensibly benefitting from the infrastructure.

There are also security risks. State-aligned Chinese juggernauts such as Huawei are major suppliers for BRI projects — building out infrastructure like fiber-optic lines, 5G networks, and artificial intelligence. Corporations like Huawei are deeply entwined with Beijing’s political machine, meaning that their digital infrastructure can serve as a back door for the CCP.

A Panama Canal worker docks a Chinese container ship in Panama City on Dec. 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

This is one of the most valuable types of opportunities for DFC investment, coming in to replace Chinese projects with “trusted vendors” not linked to China.

Black just returned from a trip to Kazakhstan, where the DFC is interested in a total “telecom turnover” in partnership with the owner of Tele2, one of Kazakhstan’s largest telecommunications companies.

“We were able to finance and agree to a true rip and replace of Huawei systems and replace it with trusted vendors,” Black told the Washington Examiner.

Uprooting Chinese infrastructure and replacing it with “trusted vendors” is a costly process that countries take for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the Chinese digital infrastructure was unsatisfactory. Sometimes it was a roadblock to a more valuable investment from the West.

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Unseating Beijing’s dominance in global development is a lofty goal, especially for an agency working with just a fraction of the BRI’s resources.

The BRI is a $1.5 trillion campaign funded by the state without expectation of immediate profit. The DCF is operating on $205 billion of maximum contingent liability, a fraction of that funding.

“$205 billion is a lot of money,” Black said. “But it pales in comparison.”

Ultimately, the DCF is putting its money on capitalism, hoping that the distaste for China’s model grows while its profit-making endeavors show foreign allies that capitalism is the best way to get a project done.

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