Advancing U.S.–Africa Infrastructure Partnerships: Insights from USTDA’s Deputy Director Tom Hardy

As the United States sharpens its focus on global infrastructure, energy security, and critical supply chains, Africa is emerging as a central partner in that strategy. In this interview, Tom Hardy, USTDA Deputy Director performing the duties of Director, shares how the Agency is prioritizing key African markets and sectors, de-risking transformative projects, and accelerating the deployment of trusted U.S. technologies across the continent – from energy and digital infrastructure to critical minerals and AI-enabled systems.

1. Which African markets or sectors are emerging as top priorities for USTDA right now, and why?

USTDA’s priorities align with the President’s foreign policy priorities. Our core objective is to catalyze the deployment of trusted, world-class American infrastructure to advance U.S. national security interests while meeting our overseas partners’ priorities. This holds true in Africa as it does around the world.

President Trump has called upon the U.S. government to take unprecedented, historic action to strengthen American national security through infrastructure development at home and abroad. To meet this mandate, we are prioritizing projects to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals and materials, promote energy security and U.S. energy dominance, extend U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, and secure transportation linkages. More broadly, our priority industries are critical minerals, digital infrastructure, energy, and transportation.

Energy infrastructure cuts across many of these. It features in our strategies for securing critical minerals and advancing AI infrastructure, given the significant power demands involved. USTDA is also supporting opportunities that expand U.S. fossil fuel exports, reinforcing both energy security and economic competitiveness.

2. How is USTDA helping to de-risk projects to make them more attractive to U.S. investors and financiers?

De-risking projects is inherent to our work. USTDA is the U.S. government’s first mover on critical infrastructure development abroad. The Agency funds the upfront planning that accelerates the preparation of infrastructure projects including feasibility studies, technical assistance and pilot projects. These are the crucial steps that turn promising ideas into bankable infrastructure projects that create export opportunities for U.S. companies.

USTDA also works closely with financial institutions in both the United States and overseas to ensure projects are structured to address the requirements of specific lenders. We work closely with African financial institutions that bring deep expertise in local markets so we can adapt our program to the specific needs for of a given environment. These partnerships help build deal flow, mitigate project risks, and increase the likelihood that our projects are financed and implemented.

For example, in Nigeria, Green Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (GLNG) is using innovative U.S. technology to develop an LNG processing and distribution facility as the result of a 2020 USTDA feasibility study. USTDA’s study helped mobilize Naira-based financing through Nigeria’s InfraCredit, a novel approach that gave GLNG access to domestic debt capital markets for the first time. Using goods and services from suppliers in Michigan, South Carolina, and Texas, the project will allow GLNG to deliver fuel to end-user customers in areas without sufficient gas pipeline infrastructure.

We also work in close coordination with other U.S. government financing agencies. USTDA funded a feasibility study to support the development of Sierra Leone’s first utility-scale independent power plant and first gas-fired power project. In 2024, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) committed $412 million toward the project.

3. For African governments or project sponsors looking to engage USTDA, what makes a project compelling from your perspective?

USTDA is a transactional agency. Our threshold consideration is whether a project will directly advance the strategic priorities of both the United States and our overseas partner. We also consider whether projects can generate significant U.S. exports of goods and services and have a strong likelihood of receiving implementation financing from private banks, multilateral development banks or U.S. government partners like the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the DFC.

Particularly compelling projects include those that strengthen critical minerals supply chains, facilitate the deployment of U.S.-based AI solutions, promote the adoption of U.S. energy technologies, or create direct market opportunities for U.S. fossil fuels. We are also prioritizing projects that integrate U.S.-backed AI technologies into power sector applications.

4. How is USTDA supporting the adoption of innovative and U.S.-based technologies across African infrastructure projects?

Everything USTDA does is designed to put trusted U.S.-made technologies at the center of critical infrastructure projects overseas, and our model has proven enormously successful. USTDA’s program supports an average of $226 in U.S. exports for every dollar it programs. We achieve these results because we give our partners the chance to choose American technology over our competitors’.

USTDA’s toolbox includes project preparation activities like feasibility studies, technical assistance, and pilot projects to advance individual infrastructure projects. USTDA also hosts activities that promote exclusive infrastructure partnerships with the United States and catalyze the deployment of trusted American technology.

USTDA plans to host several events in 2026, including reverse trade missions focused on grid security and midstream gas infrastructure. Through these events, USTDA will bring key decision-makers from Africa to the United States to familiarize them with the latest U.S. technologies, services, and best practices to support their infrastructure priorities. During each visit, we also introduce delegates to U.S. policies, regulations, and financing mechanisms that can advance the implementation of the region’s priority projects.

5. How do projects like the Zambia copper-cobalt study fit into USTDA’s broader approach to critical minerals and supply chains?

Our approach to critical minerals offers our partners a responsible alternative for developing their natural resources while reducing China’s stranglehold on essential supply chains.

The Zambia study is one example of USTDA’s latest efforts to expand and strengthen our critical minerals programming, with the goal of increasing America’s access to critical minerals and rare earth elements that are essential to American commercial and defense interests. Our strategy takes a comprehensive view of the complete mining life cycle, from projects like the one in Zambia to ancillary infrastructure like power generation and transmission, railroads and ports that are required to bring resources to market.

Looking ahead, USTDA is applying a full range of tools to support critical minerals development. USTDA’s expansive approach includes possibilities for resource mapping, drilling, resource confirmation, front-end engineering design, pre-feasibility studies, feasibility studies, pilot projects, legal and financial transaction assistance, and support for negotiations to secure agreements for critical minerals to be shipped to the United States instead of other nations.