China’s claim that its massive Belt and Road Initiative will benefit other countries is “highly dubious” a senior Trump administration official told Fox News Wednesday.
China announced the initiative in 2013 and has signed cooperation deals with 125 countries, according to a report from the Chinese government.
Under the BRI initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping aims to revive the ancient Silk Road trading routes with an infrastructure network he hopes will widen Beijing’s influence.
But the Trump administration is wary of the plan.
“China’s Belt and Road Initiative purports to address the legitimate infrastructure demands of the world’s less-developed economies, but primarily aims to export China’s own economic imbalances – industrial overcapacity, excess labor, large foreign currency reserves – and to convert these into political influence and strategic military access,” a senior administration official told Fox.
“In most or all cases, China’s state-driven approach to infrastructure development has facilitated corruption, enabled poor fiscal management and damaged economic governance and institutionality in recipient countries,” the official said. “It hasn’t taken long for much of the world to recognize that for all of China’s claims, the development outcomes of its infrastructure projects are highly dubious.”
National Security Adviser John Bolton this week publicly warned Ukraine not to get involved and said the two countries “share a common commitment to preserving Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and to ensuring it is not subject to Chinese economic exploitation.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.