America's development-finance institution, known as the DFC. It was established during Donald Trump's first term in the White House to lend to companies in poor countries at market rates. Since then it has invested $50bn, in loans and equity stakes, in everything from mining in Africa to telecoms in Asia. It also sells insurance against corruption, terrorism and war. Its roughly 700 staff are mostly commercial lawyers and financial analysts, rather than aid bureaucrats or development economists.
Unlike aid organisations, which dole out cheap loans and grants, the DFC picks projects likely to turn a profit, and seeks to support industries where America lags behind China, encouraging alternative supply in allied countries. It lends only in concert with other financiers, on the theory that a small American financial package could encourage much bigger private investments. Its profits are collected by the federal government.
After Trump returned to office in 2025, the DFC became the last American development institution standing. USAID, America's biggest foreign-aid agency, was shut down; the Millennium Challenge Corporation (set up by George W. Bush to build infrastructure in poor countries) was frozen; the Global Engagement Centre and the Agency for Global Media were also eliminated. Traditional American aid was transformed into a nakedly self-interested tool: rather than grants, the administration issued near-commercial-rate loans and equity investments, prioritising ideological allies, leaders controlling desired resources, and countries to lure from China. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, oversaw the America First Opportunity Fund, a $3bn vehicle to direct finance towards strategic partners. (20251004, 20260228)
Mr Trump issued an executive order instructing the DFC to ramp up American critical-mineral production, and officials explored using it to support domestic priorities, including potentially building factories and considering projects in Greenland. The White House sought to raise the ceiling on its total lending from $60bn to $250bn; a $300bn cap would rival China's bilateral lending capacity (some $185bn since 2016). Every seven years lawmakers must extend the organisation's life.
As of early 2026 the DFC is led by Ben Black. It has deployed both equity and debt in critical-minerals projects "in the world's most strategic regions", including seed funding for minerals in Ukraine and a third of the $1.8bn that Orion CMC is injecting into Congo. It was mulling a $700m investment in Kazakh tungsten mines.
In December 2025 Congress extended the DFC's life to 2031, lifted a ban on investing in rich countries (including America), set aside $5bn for equity stakes worth up to 40% of a company's value, and raised the ceiling on total lending from $60bn to $205bn, not far off the World Bank's loan book of $285bn. Annual lending grew from $5bn in 2020 to $12bn in 2024 before falling to $4bn in 2025 amid reorganisation. The board, which approves new investments, includes Marco Rubio and Howard Lutnick. In February 2026 Mr Black opened a New York office to work more easily with hedge funds, which the DFC now favours as partners. The agency plans 60-80 investments a year.
Recent deals include $570m for a rare-earths mine in Brazil, a mining joint venture with the Uzbek government, a $1bn deal with Gécamines (a Congolese state mining conglomerate) and Mercuria to export Congolese copper, and infrastructure finance for railways in Angola ($550m) and the DRC (up to $1bn). The DFC also runs a fund with the Ukrainian government and recruited Chubb to organise $20bn of private-sector marine policies, plus $20bn of reinsurance, for tankers attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war.
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.