The U.S. International Development Agency has suspended many projects that deal with global issues such as health, hunger and education, with thousands of workers layoffs or taking administrative leave.
Now, the son of a former Goldman Sachs analyst and private equity billionaire, has ambition to manage a portion of USAID's roughly $40 billion budget and apply more of the “promet” approach to help other countries develop.
Benjamin Black, 40, was appointed President Trump and runs the US International Development Finance Corporation. It is a little known institution that invests billions of dollars each year in foreign companies and projects and does not lend them.
The father of Leon Black, co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, said he wants to be able to develop the money he previously made to USAID for international projects that explicitly benefit America's interests.
“If we're going to spend money abroad, let's do it with an investment-driven model,” Benjamin Black and tech entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale wrote in an essay last month about two weeks before Trump's inauguration.
Their essay, published on Lonsdale's blog, said USAID had experienced “absurd mission drift” and poured money into unnecessary projects that promote gender equity and green energy. Bloomberg reported earlier in his essay. For decades, USAID has provided the country with humanitarian assistance, including maternal health support in Zambia and disease surveillance in Cambodia.
But Black argued that the US should focus on projects that bring clear benefits to Americans. For example, he hopes the development agency is at the forefront of developing infrastructure and mining projects in Greenland, an ice-covered island that Trump says he wants to control.
It's not clear what the annual budget for USAID, controlled by Congress, will be about less than two months after Trump's efforts to overhaul the federal government. Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person and Trump's prime minister, calls USAID a “crime organisation.”
Black's spokesman, Arthur Schwartz, declined to comment on the article. A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
The International Development Finance Corporation, created during Trump's first presidency, receives bipartisan support as it is generally seen as a way for the United States to compete with China to help build important projects in other countries. Most of the profits from the investment go to the Ministry of Finance.
The agency has already invested hundreds of billions of dollars in overseas projects. It has supported funding $49 billion worth of infrastructure and energy projects in 114 countries, primarily Africa, Latin America and Asia. During the Biden administration, the agency invested in African railways and Greek shipyards.
But Black's ambitions for the agency, and his pointy criticism of USAID, show a shift in American foreign policy that has focused on humanitarian concerns, not only promoting American interests.
“Obviously someone read this essay and said, 'This guy is in line with our worldview,'' said Michael Kelly, a professor of international law at Clayton University Law School. “For Ben Black, it's all about return on investment.”
By filling government jobs, Trump often relied on wealthy individuals from finance, real estate and technology. However, several people familiar with the process said Black's nomination came as a sort of surprise given his limited foreign policy and legislative experience.
Black holds a degree in law and business from Harvard University and is taxed by the New York University Law School. He was associated with the Council of Foreign Relations for five years and was an associate at Apollo for two years after his stint at Goldman Sachs.
In 2020, he founded a small investment company, Fortinbras Enterprises, according to regulatory filings. Mr. Black was involved in raising money for a so-called special purpose acquisition company or SPAC amid such a frenzy on Wall Street. SPAC sponsors must use the money they have raised to buy the company within two years or return it to the investor. Mr. Black's SPAC was unable to trade.
Lonsdale, co-founder of big data analytics software company Palantir Technologies, did not reply to requests for comment. Lonsdale, who founded a new university at Austin University in Texas with venture company 8VC, was an adviser in Musk's federal cost-cutting role and was tied up by Pro Trump's super PAC. In the preface to the essay, Lonsdale called Black a “foreign policy victory.”
Black's connections to the investment world could also bolster the efforts of private corporations, hedge funds and development agencies to attract international investors. Some large transactions are backed by a combination of stock investments and loans from agents and banks.
Worth more than $13 billion and a world-renowned art collector, 73-year-old Leon Black is a well-known Wall Street figure. He and Trump have known each other for decades.
On the eve of last month's inauguration, Elder Black attended a candlelight dinner hosted by Trump at the National Museum of Architecture, which started at $250,000, according to one attendee.
For the past few years, Leon Black has been troubled by an association with disgraceful investor Jeffrey Epstein. Black resigned as chairman of a private equity firm in 2021 due to a dispute over his personal connection with Epstein and a dispute over disclosure that he paid Epstein's gorgeous fees for taxes and real estate plans. The law firm hired by the Apollo board's dispute committee found that Mr. Black had done nothing wrong.
A spokesman for Leon Black declined to comment.
When announcing the Benjamin Black nominations at the Truth Social Post on January 31st, Trump wrote:
Black will need to lobby Congress to reauthorize spending by the International Development Finance Agency. This is about to double the total amount of projects that could fund $120 billion, a proposal being considered during the Biden administration. Significant changes to the agency's mission require council approval.
One more prominent project during the Biden administration was to provide $553 million in loans to the Angola railway project. In 2023, the agency lent $125 million to a shipyard near Athens, allowing natural gas to be transported around Europe in order to keep Europe from relying on Russian oil.
Under the first Trump administration, the agency worked with Trump's old daughter Ivanka to promote a project aimed at lending it to women-owned companies. The agency has extended its $92 million loan to help Honduras banks lend to small businesses.
Kirsten Neus Contributed research.
