Belize Hopes to Salvage $250M MCC Grant Amid U.S. Policy Changes

Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca says that while the government has not received official notification of the MCC grant’s cancellation, he hopes that the grant is salvageable. This month, Love News broke the news of the $250 million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) being cancelled by the US Government. The MCC grant, signed in September 2024, was intended to enhance Belize’s education and energy sectors. However, recent policy shifts under the Trump administration have led to the dismantling of the MCC, and cancellation of its grants. This week, Minister Fonseca acknowledged that the government recently raised the issue with the US Secretary of State Mark Rubio. Fonseca explained that while there may be hope for the grant, the government is actively assessing the potential impacts of its loss to address any funding gaps now created. 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Trade, Culture and Immigration: “Let me first make it very clear that we have received no official formal notice of the cancellation of the MCC program.  But obviously we have seen reports so that it appears likely.  Again, this is a matter Prime Minister Briceño raised with Secretary Rubio.  And he again, pledged and he is in fact the chair of the MCC. I think the new administration reconfigured the board and I think as I understand it, the secretary of state is the chairman of the MCC on this new structure. So he said that, you know, he would look into the matter and find out exactly what the situation was with in terms of Belize. So we’ll have to wait and see there. But yes, we obviously were disappointed. I am disappointed.  Belize has done a lot of work.  We spent I think more than two years preparing, working very closely with our MCC colleagues. It’s not something that Belize went looking for, the MCC funds came from the US government. They’re the ones who identified Belize, selected Belize. They’re the ones who said listen, Belize you’re on the right track in terms of governance reform, in terms of economic reform. You’re on the right track. We want to help you. We want to support you. We want to work with you to identify key areas of constraints to national development. So we work together, we identified those two critical areas, education and energy as two constraints to Belize’s development. And then we together worked on developing the compacts, the actual compact agreements and documents, one for education, one for energy. So a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of effort went into this work more than, as I said, more than two and a half years or so. Obviously, when something like that is brought to an end abruptly without a proper explanation, then you’re very disappointed. As we understand it, what has happened is that this new department created in the new administration, a department called the Department of Government Efficiency, I believe, DOGE,  they have given a mandate by the President of the United States to identify areas, to review all eras of spending in the government.  And so they have  taken a very wide brush in terms of these eras. And they identified MCC as one area where they believe spending could be cut.”

Eighty percent of the monies under the fund were earmarked for projects directly linked to the education system. Minister Fonseca noted that regardless of the loss of funding, the government will ensure the critical initiatives are still carried out. 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Trade, Culture and Immigration: “It’s very disappointing and we hope that there’s still an opportunity for this to be salvaged, an opportunity for it to be reviewed. And we hope that the US administration will take a critical look at it and understand and appreciate that these investments in education, investments in energy are very much aligned with their priorities in terms of you know, national security priorities in terms of economic development priorities. So, you know, that’s our hope. But in any case, you know, if if the program is halted and cancelled, you know, we have already, as you pointed out, Prime Minister pointed out, we have a budget for education, a very good, strong budget. We will have to obviously target that budget more strategically to meet some of the challenges that we pointed out under the MCC. Same thing we will have to do with energy. But we’ll also have to go out to find more grant funding and low cost financing to address some of these critical areas that we want to address.  So you know, well, disappointing, but you know, we’ll find a way to get it done.”

The government had established an MCC Board of Authority with members from the BNTU, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a civil society representative from the education sector.