WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is moving to significantly increase funding for programs intended to curb China’s expanding global influence, reviving many initiatives that were paused last year amid sweeping budget reductions and staffing cuts.
In a notice sent to Congress late last week, the administration said it plans to spend $175.8 million to replace aging and outdated undersea telecommunications cables across the Caribbean and Central America, a move aimed at keeping China from gaining a foothold in critical digital infrastructure. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the notification Monday.
U.S. officials have voiced mounting alarm over China’s activities in the Americas, including Chinese ownership stakes in ports at both ends of the Panama Canal, regional infrastructure projects backed by Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, and growing Chinese investment in telecommunications networks.
A State Department official said China’s economic footprint in the Western Hemisphere creates risks for U.S. national security and economic well-being. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Chinese proposals can appear less expensive at first but often become costlier because of overruns, hidden maintenance charges and weak performance.
The undersea cable funding appears to be one piece of a wider effort to restore support for programs designed to limit Chinese influence around the world, an undertaking that could require hundreds of millions of additional dollars. The push comes even as President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping project a public image of cooperation, with Xi expected to visit the U.S. this fall.
U.S. considers broader global spending to counter China
The State Department is weighing nearly $500 million in additional spending for China-focused programs across the Western Hemisphere, Africa and Asia, according to an internal department document obtained by the AP.
“The United States must respond to the CCP’s growing economic, technological, and diplomatic leverage around the world which undermines our national interests,” the document says, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its acronym.
Many of those proposed programs are designed to “reclaim diplomatic leverage” through investments in areas where the U.S. had previously been spending money but stopped as the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, carried out deep government budget and personnel cuts last year.
Those cuts, which dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and eliminated several hundred diplomatic posts worldwide, also affected previously approved projects, including some aimed at countering China.
A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss future administration plans, confirmed the Trump administration’s intent to boost funding on countering China but could not speak to specifics. The official acknowledged discussions of large-scale projects but said many were still in the discussion phase.
Congress told about undersea cable project to keep China away
The program described to Congress on Friday is called the “Countering CCP Control of Caribbean and Central America Undersea Cables project.”
It will “fund the installation of strategically-selected undersea cable infrastructure” and support foreign governments in partnering with private sector undersea cable installers, according to the notification. The money will “support replacement of outdated undersea telecommunications cables in the Caribbean and Central America region with secure, U.S. and trusted alternatives,” it said.
Even as it pursues the war with Iran and peace efforts in Gaza and Lebanon, the Trump administration has put a focus on the Western Hemisphere, capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, ramping up pressure on Cuba’s socialist government in the months since and imposing severe sanctions on the government in Nicaragua.
Under the new program, funding is anticipated to be given to or in support of undersea cable projects benefiting El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti, the document said. The U.S. has tenuous ties with Nicaragua and would not be working with the government there.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Other anti-China efforts could focus on cyber and critical minerals
At the same time, the administration has drawn up plans to spend more than $340 million for over 50 specific anti-China projects around the world, including many in the Western Hemisphere, according to the internal State Department document outlining various proposals.
The administration notified Congress in May that it had spent several hundred million dollars in counter-China funding from the 2024 budget that was approved by the Biden administration. However, many other projects funded for 2024 and 2025 had been put on hold.
Among the plans to be resurrected are the creation of security operations centers in Argentina and Belize to monitor Chinese threats to critical infrastructure and cyber platforms throughout the region. Also coming back would be initiatives to protect Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay from alleged Chinese attempts to infiltrate port operations and illegally exploit offshore fishing and critical minerals extraction.
More broadly, the proposal, which is still under consideration, would work against Chinese influence in the selection of a successor to the Dalai Lama “by developing proprietary technology to ensure secure communications and information collection.” It also would go after international support for China’s space program and push back against Chinese firms seeking to export surveillance and censorship technology.
The document did not describe the initiatives in detail.
Trump is expected to meet with Xi in September around the time of the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York. To prepare for that meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week at a regional security conference in the Philippines.
Trump has oscillated between anger and elation with Xi, whom the U.S. leader has sought to cultivate as an ally even while China pursues goals antithetical to many of his administration’s. The ultimate impact of the proposed new programs won’t be known for many months or years.
