When you think of an America First energy policy, what places come to mind? Texas’s Permian Basin? Williston, North Dakota? The Trans-Alaska Pipeline?
How about Mozambique?
Mozambique, opposite Madagascar on Africa's southeast coast, is a cauldron of political violence, jihadist insurgency, and general dysfunction. Yet thanks to the federal Export-Import (ExIm) Bank, American taxpayers will be bearing financing risks for its energy development. A loan approved by ExIm this spring guarantees nearly $5 billion for the completion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province.
This deal is concerning on two levels. First, there’s a reason the LNG project can’t get the private market to fund it: Mozambique is unstable. In 2021 Islamic militants overran Cabo Delgado, disrupting an earlier round of construction on the LNG site. Just this past December, chaos engulfed the national capital, Maputo, after a rigged election. Prisons were burst open. Electricity infrastructure was torn down. At least 100 people were slain. Not exactly an environment conducive to recouping an investment.
Continue reading the entire piece at RealClearEnergy
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Jordan McGillis is City Journal’s Economics Editor.
Photo by ALFREDO ZUNIGA/AFP via Getty Images