Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently delivered remarks at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s 5th Anniversary Conference. “[W]e have a strategic imperative,” he said, “to demonstrate that other countries can look to the United States as a reliable, responsive partner in tackling some of our biggest challenges.”
The Development Finance Corporation has committed a record $12 billion this year across 44 countries toward enhancing food security, addressing the climate, and promoting inclusive opportunity, said Secretary Blinken.
“When you commit those resources, you’ve shown countries that they don’t have to resort to projects that are poorly built, environmentally destructive, that import or abuse workers, that foster corruption or burden countries with unsustainable debt. Instead, they can achieve growth, they can achieve progress, while adhering to the strongest, the highest environmental, social, and labor standards.”
When other governments see that the United States and its companies’ investments make a concrete difference in their lives, they want to deepen their partnership with the United States, said Secretary Blinken:
“And when people around the world have greater access to markets, to health care, to renewable energy, that’s good for America’s businesses, for Americans’ health, and for the planet that we all share.”
“As I am looking out at the challenges that we’ll have to face in the years ahead, it is clear to me that we need the [Development Finance Corporation, or] DFC, to do even more, in more places,” said Secretary Blinken:
“I think it means expanding the number of countries where the DFC is actually eligible to operate. This would bring DFC in line with our other development finance institutions and enable the DFC to work, within limits, in strategic sectors – critical minerals, energy, transportation, communications – not only in low- and middle-income nations, but also in high-income nations when it displaces our competitors. It means increasing the DFC’s financial firepower by doubling the total amount it’s able to have invested at any given time – from $60 billion to $120 billion.”
“What the DFC is doing,” said Secretary Blinken, “is really one of the best examples of how – when our country gets in the game, when we have something tangible to offer other countries around the world – we really are the partner of choice.”
