Adviser pushes back on Trump plan to boost domestic minerals production

A well-known adviser to the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is pushing back against a plan by President Donald Trump to use it to boost domestic investment in mineral production.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT:

DFC is a key source of development finance globally and has a portfolio of more than $50 billion in projects from food, energy, and health to critical infrastructure. More than 70% of that funding is in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

Development experts are concerned Trump's March 20 executive order, which invoked emergency powers to boost critical minerals' domestic production and named DFC as key to its funding, could see the agency pull away from its international commitments.

KEY QUOTES:

"DFC focuses on low and lower middle income countries. The DFC currently does not have the authority to invest in the U.S. That could change, but it would result in pushback from some of the DFC's strongest supporters," said Robert Mosbacher, who served as head of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation under former President George W. Bush.

"I'm optimistic that we'll end up with a reauthorisation that tries to strike a balance and keep the agency focused on development while increasing the focus on foreign policy objectives."

CONTEXT:

The order comes after Trump cut $76 billion in project funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, raising concerns among development analysts and non-governmental organisations that the DFC's mandate would be also altered.

Trump's pick for DFC's new CEO, Ben Black, son of Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon, has done little to assuage concerns, development experts have said. Black wrote in an online blog disparagingly about DFC's support for "virtue-signalling" green projects and in favour of accessing Greenland's resources.

WHAT'S NEXT:

Once appointed, Black will have the power to feed into an ongoing review of DFC's governing rules, set to conclude by early October, though any radical changes of policy may be tempered by the broad bipartisan support its current mandate has enjoyed in both houses, Mosbacher said.

DFC is in line to manage a critical minerals fund proposed by Trump as part of ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia, Reuters reported last week.