Ep 152: Ben Black Runs America's $200B Foreign Investment Fund; Here's His Plan to Counter China & Rebuild American Influence

“What people don't realize about the Marshall Plan, part of it is this myth has been taken on about pure altruism and it was incredibly altruistic, but 70% of the funds that The US sent over to Europe in the Marshall Plan were used to purchase US goods and services. It was a stimulus for us and it hardwired markets for US workers, businesses, and capital, and we had a first call on strategic and critical materials.”

“So I went on part of my honeymoon with my wife to Rwanda and remember driving, when we did a gorilla trek and, you know, an amazing country, especially what they went through, with their genocide and civil war and how the country has been rebuilt. But you know, the driver on the way to the Guerrilla Tracts Plaza, guys are Americans, we love Americans. This road, everything here was built by the Chinese. We hate the Chinese. And I go, but they built you the road, why would they? And I go, yeah, they built our road. They won't pay and they won't use Rwandan workers. They don't eat at the same restaurants or anything like that.”

“Do you know the single factor that has brought the most people out of poverty throughout civilization? Actually industrialization. And so when you think about the projects you're going to do, you need the big ones that move the needle for people. I mean, it's the story of America in a lot of ways. Look at the railroads going west and everything, Towns develop alongside railroads.”

“What he intuitively recognized faster than almost anyone I spoke to was hey, if other insurers people talk about Lloyd's a lot, but, you know, other insurers are canceling war risk insurance because the straits closed, then implicitly that means everybody's insurance programs across the world on stuff like this rests on the back of The US Military. And what he says is, why are they getting paid for it and not us? Especially when it's our guys at risk and everything we're doing there.”

“I'd be remiss if I didn't start with the Western Hemisphere. What's going on in Latin America and across The Americas is certainly something that's never existed in our lifetimes, and I think you have to go back over a hundred years to see this type of opportunity there. You have a lot of pro American governments. You have elections moving in a direction of folks who are pro business, pro growth, anti crime, real allies to The United States.”

“I think in some ways, we were slightly victims of our own success. You know, you go to this period of time after we win the Cold War, and everyone's into Fukuyama's end of history. And if you build it, it'll just people will automatically convert to our system. We let China into the WTO. We lost all discipline.”

“So sulfuric acid exports have been banned, from China. That's 25% of the market. That starts May 1. Sulfuric acid is used often for the processing of rare earths. It's incredibly important for fertilizer and a whole host of agricultural products.”

“My head of investments has gone overseas to places and has gotten thank yous for being treated like a partner, to have expectations set rather than an incredibly paternalistic view that frankly does not create partners but dependency. When people actually have skin in the game, are invested in and are working hard for something, and it's why we have them we have our partner countries co invest with us.”