At the United States Agency for International Development, thousands of employees were dismissed or administrative leave and many of its projects that enter into worldwide issues, such as health, hunger and education have stopped.
Now a former Goldman Sachs analyst and son of a private equity billionaire has ambitions to control part of USAIDs around $ 40 billion budget and to use more of a “pro-market” approach to support development in other countries.
Benjamin Black, 40, was nominated by President Trump to run the American International Development Finance Corporation, a little known agency that invests every year and lends billions to companies and projects abroad.
Mr. Black, whose father Leon Black is, a co-founder of the private equity company Apollo Global Management, has said that he wants the Development Finance Agency to use money that previously went to USAID for international projects that explicitly benefit American interests.
“If we are going to spend money abroad, let's do so with an investment-driven model,” Benjamin Black wrote and the tech entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale last month in an essay, about two weeks before Mr Trump's inauguration.
Their essay, which appeared on Mr. Lonsdale's blog, said that USAID had experienced “absurd mission company” and was freighting money in unnecessary projects that promoted gender equality and green energy. Bloomberg previously reported about the essay. For decades, USAID has offered humanitarian aid to countries, such as health assistance to the mother in Zambia and disease supply in Cambodia.
But Mr. Black argued that the United States should concentrate on projects that have yielded a clear return for Americans. For example, he wants the development agency to be at the forefront of developing infrastructure and mining projects in Greenland, the island-covered island that Mr Trump says he wants to control.
Less than two months after Mr Trump's efforts to overhaul the federal government, it is not clear what will be of the annual credits of USAID, which are controlled by the congress. Elon Musk, the world's richest man and the cost photo of Mr. Trump, has called USAID a “criminal organization” that must be placed out of operation.
Arthur Schwartz, a spokesperson for Mr. Black, refused to comment on this article. A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comments.
The International Development Finance Corporation, founded during Mr. Trump's first presidency, has generally received a dichotomy of support because it is seen as a way for the United States to compete with China to build vital projects in other countries. Most profits of his investments go to the Ministry of Finance.
The agency has already invested dozens of billions of dollars in overseas projects. It helped in financing $ 49 billion in infrastructure and energy projects in 114 countries, mainly in Africa, Latin -America and Asia. During the Biden administration, the office invested in a railway in Africa and a shipyard in Greece.
But Mr. Black's ambitions for the agency – and his pointed criticism of USAID – mark a shift in American foreign policy, which traditionally focuses not only on promoting American interests, but on humanitarian care.
“It is clear that someone has read this essay and said,” This guy corresponds to our worldview, “said Michael Kelly, a professor of international law at the Creighton University Law School. “For Ben Black it's all about return on investments.”
When fulfilling jobs of the government, Mr. Trump often uses rich individuals of finance, real estate and technology. But several people who are familiar with the process said that Mr. Black's nomination had come as a surprise in view of his limited foreign policy and legislative experience.
Mr. Black has law and business degrees of Harvard and a master's degree in taxation of the New York University School of Law. He was associated with the Council on Foreign Relations for five years and was an employee at Apollo for two years after his Stint at Goldman Sachs.
In 2020 he started a small investment firm, Fortinbras Enterprises, which has $ 122 million in assets, according to a legal submission. Mr. Black was involved in collecting money for a so -called acquisition company with special purposes, or spac, amid a frenzy of such deals on Wall Street. Spac sponsors must use the money they raise to buy a company within two years or to return it to investors. The Spac of Mr. Black could not close a deal.
Mr. Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, a Big Data-Analytic software company, has returned no requests for comments. Mr. Lonsdale, who also founded the Venture Company 8VC and a new college, the University of Austin in Texas, is a consultant from Mr. Musk in his federal cost-saving role and was bound to a Pro-Trump Super Pac. In a preface of the essay, Mr. Lonsdale referred to Mr. Black as a 'foreign policy rank'.
Mr. Black's younger connections with the investment world can also strengthen the attempts of the development agency to attract private equity companies, hedge funds and international investors to participate in deals in deals initiated by the agency. Some larger deals are supported by a combination of stock investments and loans from the agency and banks.
Leon Black, 73, who is worth more than $ 13 billion and is a world -famous art collector, is a well -known figure on Wall Street. He and Mr. Trump has known each other for decades.
On the eve of the inauguration last month, the oldest Mr. Black a candlelight dinner that was organized by Mr. Trump in the National Building Museum, where ticket prices started at $ 250,000, according to a participant.
In recent years, Leon Black has been chased by his associations with Jeffrey Epstein, the chatter financier. Mr. Black went as chairman of the private equity company in 2021 because of the controversy about his personal ties with Mr Epstein and the disclosure that he had paid Mr Epstein substantial costs for tax and estate planning. A law firm hired by the conflict committee of the Apollo board, found that Mr. Black had done nothing wrong.
A Leon Black spokesperson refused to comment.
In the announcement of the nomination of Benjamin Black in a social social function on January 31, Mr Trump wrote: “Ben will use his financial insight and broad deal expertise to ensure that our investments around the world benefit our citizens and strengthen our country.”
Mr. Black will have to lobby the congress to re -authorize expenditure for the International Development Finance, which tries to double the total dollar value of the projects that can finance up to $ 120 billion, a proposal that was considered during the Biden administration. Any important change in the agency's mission requires approval by the congress.
One of the more striking projects during the Biden administration provided a loan of $ 553 million to a railway project in Angola. In 2023, the desk borrowed $ 125 million from a shipyard near Athens to have natural gas transported around Europe, in an attempt to leave Europe on its dependence on Russian oil.
Under the first government Trump, the office collaborated with Mr. Trump's older daughter, Ivanka, to insist on projects aimed at lending companies in its own property. The agency has extended a loan of $ 92 million to help borrowing banks in Honduras to small companies.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
