Trump plans to divert development aid for poor countries, to promoting the nuclear industry

Trump’s push to use global aid for nuclear projects alarms development groups, The Hill, BY REBECCA BEITSCH – 05/06/20 A new effort by the Trump administration to bolster the nuclear industry is eyeing a surprising source of financing — a fund designed to fight poverty in developing countries.

In a list of official recommendations to President Trump last month, the Nuclear Fuels Working Group argued the U.S. needs to sell nuclear power technology abroad and battle the influence of countries like China and Russia that have become dominant suppliers.

One way to do that, the group said, is to lift restrictions at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to let the agency fund nuclear projects alongside other development work.

But development groups worry that tapping the DFC to greenlight nuclear projects will do more to promote American interests than alleviate poverty.

“I struggle to see it as something they should be doing,” Conor Savoy, executive director of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network.

There’s also a concern that the projects won’t benefit the poorer countries the DFC is charged with helping. Setting up nuclear power systems requires a higher level of infrastructure, meaning overseas projects might be more likely to find a home in Eastern Europe than Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The DFC was supposed to invest in those countries very sparingly,” Savoy said of wealthier nations.

To access DFC funds for an initiative of this kind, the agency would have to lift its prohibition on supporting nuclear projects, a move that only requires an internal policy change, without any congressional action.

The agency has signaled a willingness to make that change.

“DFC welcomes the recommendation in the administration’s Nuclear Fuel Working Group report to remove DFC’s prohibition on financing nuclear power projects in developing countries. Access to affordable and reliable power is essential for developing countries to advance their economies,” the agency said in a statement Monday…….

The DFC was started in 2019, replacing its predecessor — the Overseas Private Investment Corporation — with double the funding and fewer restrictions on how to spend it.

But the $60 billion agency also has an expanded mission: elevating the world’s poorest countries while also advancing U.S. foreign policy.

Development experts, however, say there’s been an imbalance between those two goals in the agency’s short history…….

There’s been a skewing toward more national security areas. They’ve tried to counter that by highlighting their more development-focused projects, but in terms of volume of commitments, in terms of sheer volume of money, it does seem to be skewing more toward national security priorities and less toward development,” Savoy said…….. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/496295-trumps-push-to-use-global-aid-for-nuclear-projects-alarms

May 7, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, politics international, USA

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