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    "original_url": "https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/09\/16\/american-tax-dollars-are-financing-cell-towers-in-angola\/?mc_eid=d824ab4cc6&utm_source=Reason%2BMagazine&utm_campaign=adce43648b-reason_brand%7Cnew_at_reason%7C2026_09_16b&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_31d7ef7f57-adce43648b-589886052",
    "parsed_content": "China\nAmerican Tax Dollars Are Financing Cell Towers in Angola\nThe Trump administration\u2019s strategy for the Export-Import Bank could repeat the mistakes of China\u2019s failed Belt and Road Initiative.\nTosin Akintola\n|\n9.16.2026 12:55 PM\nShare on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL\n Add Reason to Google\nMedia Contact & Reprint Requests\n (Photo: Loopall\/Dreamstime. Illustration: Fatima Ruiz\/Midjourney.)\n Listen to this article 5 min American taxpayers are supporting cellphone networks in sub-Saharan Africa, airlines in Turkey, and a host of other large-scale infrastructure projects worldwide as part of President Donald Trump's plan to increase America's influence internationally, presumably to break China's stranglehold on the global critical mineral supply chain.\u00a0\nIn FY 2025, the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM)\u2014a federal credit agency that provides loans and guarantees to international buyers of American goods, and insurance to domestic exporters when the private sector is unwilling or unable to take the risk\u2014approved $5.03 billion in loans and long-term guarantees across 23 transactions. The Trump administration authorized 16 of those deals, for a total of $3.39 billion. Since the start of Trump's second term, EXIM has authorized $4.83 billion in spending through project and structured finance\u2014the bank's most flexible financing options\u2014alone. That's 61 percent more than the $2.99 billion the Biden administration approved under the same vehicle.\nLast week, the White House added another deal to its ledger when EXIM provided a $99.6 million loan to Africell\u2014the only U.S.-owned cellphone network operator in Africa\u2014to finance the company's operations in Angola. Africell said the loan is part of a broader $5 billion commitment for developing railways, bridges, and broadcasting in the Lobito Corridor, a transnational network that connects mineral-rich regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to Angola's port of Lobito.\nPowered By10 SecScores of Young Sports Fans Placed Their First Bets This Summer NextStayIt's hard to see how building Angola's telecommunications industry benefits American taxpayers. For the Trump administration, the deal is a chance to counter China-based Huawei, which is \"estimated to have supplied more than half the 4G and 5G network infrastructure in Africa,\" according to the Associated Press.\nIf the president hopes to cut into Beijing's market share of critical minerals by replicating its foreign lending strategy, both he and American taxpayers will be displeased by the return on investment.\nIn 2013, China announced its Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to finance infrastructure projects across the developing world by providing fixed-interest loans with favorable repayment terms through the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank. Since it began, China has spent $1.39 trillion on the initiative, according to the Green Finance & Development Center, a think tank within China's Fudan University. In 2025 alone, Beijing spent $61.2 billion on developing countries in Africa like Angola.\nYet, because of their nascent economies, these countries often struggle to repay the principal and interest on Chinese loans, leaving them in significant debt distress and beholden to Beijing.\u00a0\nIn 2023, a study by Stanford's Center on China's Economy and Institutions found that distressed borrowers made up 60 percent of China's overseas lending portfolio. In a 2025 report, the Lowy Institute\u2014an Australian think tank\u2014projected that the world's poorest countries \"will make record high debt repayments totalling $22 billion to China\" that year. The group also said that \"China is grappling with a dilemma of its own making,\" including \"growing diplomatic pressure to restructure unsustainable debt, and mounting domestic pressure to recover outstanding debts.\"\nMeanwhile, many details of its loans are unknown because \"Chinese loan contracts often include far-reaching confidentiality clauses that bar the borrower from revealing the terms or even the existence of the debt,\" according to a study in The Journal of Economic Perspectives.\nIf Trump is trying to replicate China's public spending spree, American taxpayers should be wary that it might come with little transparency. In fact, there are already reasons for concern.\nWhile federal law bars EXIM from granting final approval for any loan, financial guarantee, or insurance of $100 million or more without sending Congress a detailed statement on the transaction, the explanation isn't published, and the bank isn't required to disclose whether private financing was available. For deals under the $100 million threshold\u2014like Africell\u2014EXIM isn't required to publish anything at all.\nWhen private lenders exit a market or decline to back a project, it typically signals that success would be prohibitively costly. However, with public financing, there are no such signals, meaning that American taxpayers will have to eat the losses when these \"investments\" fail.\nIt'd be understandable if the government were providing American companies with market access in other countries through trade agreements (something Trump has scorned), but playing the role of financier for the world's development projects is a losing gambit.\u00a0\nThe U.S. can't beat China by copying its foreign lending playbook.\u00a0",
    "published_at": "2026-09-16T16:55:27+00:00",
    "author_name": "Tosin Akintola",
    "site_name": "Reason",
    "section": "Economics",
    "publisher": "https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Reason.Magazine\/",
    "ai_headline": "American Tax Dollars Are Financing Cell Towers in Angola",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Trump Administration Funds Angola Cell Towers",
    "ai_excerpt": "The Trump administration is using U.S. Export-Import Bank funds to finance cell towers in Angola, aiming to counter China's influence. This strategy mirrors China's Belt and Road Initiative, which has led to significant debt distress for developing nations.",
    "ai_subject_tags": [
        "US Foreign Policy",
        "China",
        "Angola",
        "Export-Import Bank",
        "Infrastructure",
        "Debt",
        "Telecommunications",
        "Belt and Road Initiative"
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