China is winning a global infrastructure war that most Americans don’t even know is being fought. Over the past decade, Beijing has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into roads, ports, railways, and power plants across Africa, the Balkans, and beyond through its Belt and Road Initiative.
The pitch sounds generous. The reality is a debt trap: host countries borrow at steep terms, surrender strategic assets when they can’t repay, and watch Chinese workers build Chinese-designed projects using Chinese materials. China builds a port in Sri Lanka, for example, the country defaults, and suddenly Beijing controls a strategic node in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, in Africa, Chinese state-backed firms have secured mining rights, agricultural land, and telecommunications infrastructure in exchange for loans that many nations will spend generations repaying.
It’s time for America to offer a better deal.
The United States cannot cede this ground. The Balkans are a gateway into Europe — one China has been quietly prying open for years. Africa is home to the fastest-growing populations and economies on the planet. The nations in these regions are not looking for handouts. They are looking for partners, and American companies can fill that role.
The good news is we don’t need a government-run megaproject to compete. America’s greatest economic asset is its private sector. What we need is a framework that unleashes it.
A smart American infrastructure initiative — call it the American Infrastructure Initiative — would be private-sector led. To incentivize business development in these key frontier regions, the U.S. Export-Import Bank can provide loan guarantees to reduce operating risk, just as it has been doing for decades.
When American firms build abroad, American workers, engineers, manufacturers, and supply chains benefit at home. Construction contracts flow to U.S. companies. Technology exports support American jobs.
China’s approach to infrastructure in Africa and the Balkans has followed a consistent playbook. Projects are designed in China, financed by Chinese state banks at non-negotiable terms, built by Chinese workers imported specifically for the project, and equipped with Chinese technology that locks host countries into Chinese ecosystems for decades.
Local workers are often excluded from skilled roles. Local firms rarely win subcontracts. The promised development benefits — the jobs, the training, the economic spillovers — largely don’t materialize.
Unlike China’s model, an American approach can be structured to genuinely develop local capacity and know-how. An American framework can include local workforce development programs, skills training, technology transfer, and local subcontracting.
The goal of this American alternative is not to build a road and leave — it is to build a road and, in doing so, build the engineers, tradespeople, and entrepreneurs who will build the next one themselves.
Countries that develop real economic relationships with the United States become stronger partners, more stable societies, and less susceptible to Chinese pressure. Every project that improves lives and leaves behind genuine capacity is a data point against Beijing’s narrative that only China invests in emerging markets.
American companies, American technology, American values — and a foreign policy dividend that strengthens our trading partners and alliances and weakens China’s leverage. While Beijing exports dependency, Washington can export opportunity.
The Belt and Road Initiative has had a decade’s head start. But it has also left behind a trail of broken promises, unsustainable debt, and growing resentment. The door is open for a better offer. America should walk through it.
Gary Rabine is founder and chairman of the Rabine Group. Alfredo Ortiz is CEO of Job Creators Network.
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