U.S. President Donald Trump’s sparring with
China is playing out in an unlikely new arena: the sandy turf of northern
Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries. The U.S. Export-Import Bank
on Thursday approved the broadened scope of a $4.7 billion loan to back
American suppliers to a liquefied-natural-gas development that could transform
the southeastern African nation’s economy. The lender said China and Russia had
both been considering helping finance it.
“We were told that China and Russia were
slated to finance this deal,” Kimberly A. Reed, the bank’s president, said in a
statement. “This is a great example of how a revitalised Exim, thanks to
President Trump’s leadership and bipartisan support from Congress, can help
ensure the use of ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ products and services, without ceding
ground to countries like China and Russia.”
The Exim Bank helps foreign companies buy
American products when private lenders won’t provide financing, with one of its
goals being to “advance the U.S.’s comparative leadership in the world with
respect to China.” The appointment of three Trump-appointed nominees to the
bank’s board in May 2019 helped provide the quorum needed to restore its
ability to approve deals worth more than $10 million for the first time since
2015, smoothing the way for its participation in the Mozambique project.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., based in Woodlands,
Texas, initially led the Mozambican project that was sold on to French oil
major Total SA. U.S. companies including McDermott International Inc. have been
awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to help build the facility — work
that Exim Bank said could support 16,700 American jobs.
China has a well-established presence in
Mozambique. It funded and built Africa’s longest suspension bridge in the
capital, Maputo, and has invested in a massive hotel and conference center
there. Russia has made more recent inroads, winning some oil and gas licenses
and reportedly supplying mercenaries to beat back insurgents operating in the
vicinity of the gas project.
Total’s project is the smaller of two
developments that aim to tap Mozambique’s massive natural gas reserves. The
other is now led by Exxon Mobil Corp. Its notable partners include China National
Petroleum Corp., which could complicate any bid to secure Exim bank financing
of its own.
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