Port of Susah site in North Africa.

Texas businessman Michael Guidry says he has a $1.5 billion plan to help the U.S. gain a strategic foothold in Africa, which he says is being overrun with investors from other countries, primarily China.

For the past three years, Guidry has been laying the groundwork for what he envisions as North Africa's “most highly-automated and largest deep sea port.” He wants to build the port on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea near the town of Susah in oil-rich Libya. But first he needs investors.

Michael Guidry.

Guidry is the founder and CEO of security services and investment firm the Guidry Group, which is increasing its focus on developing infrastructure and has been “a global leader for kidnap and ransom resolution, security services, and crisis response/management,” according to its website.

In late January, Libyan government authorities gave the Guidry Group approval to move forward with the port deal. At the time, Hassan Jwaili, a seaport chairman of Eastern Libya, said in a prepared statement that the port was “projected to generate tens of millions of dollars in its first year alone.”

Guidry said in an interview Tuesday that he was in the midst of discussions with two potential U.S. and European investors, but declined to provide additional details, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

For Guidry, the Port of Susah project represents an opportunity for the U.S. to establish a significant presence in North Africa, which has 1,100 miles of coastline, before the Chinese stake a claim.  

China has built ports, roads, railroads and other infrastructure throughout Africa and is already the continent's biggest trading partner.

“China has always been looking at places for foreign investment. They're looking all around the world. Africa has been a prime target for Chinese for mineral access,” said Adams Lee, an international trade lawyer at Harris Bricken in Seattle who represents American and Chinese companies. “A port project seems like it would be an interesting target for Chinese heavy industrial development.”

In 2017, there were more than 10,000 Chinese-owned firms operating in Africa, primarily in the southern regions, according to a report from global management and consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The study also found that Africa-China trade had been growing by about 20 percent per year.

“All I see every time I go to Africa are more and more Chinese,” Guidry said. “It's the richest continent in the world. It has minerals, oil, gas … anything you can think of. The Chinese see Africa as the gem of the world and have been moving into it for probably the past 20 years. They pretty much have a stronghold in just about every country in Africa.”

Except Libya, according to Guidry. He said, “If we lose Libya then we've lost almost all of North Africa. We've already lost South Africa.” 

Assuming he can secure the necessary investors, Guidry hopes to break ground on the Port of Susah in October, which he said will be the “biggest infrastructure project Libya has ever had.” He dismissed concerns about possible government corruption or security threats, though he acknowledged that Libya's capital, Tripoli, where militias have been fighting for control of the city, is “the only negative side” of the country.

Libya remains on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets and Control's list of sanctioned countries. And the U.S. State Department has warned residents to avoid traveling to Libya due to “crime, terrorism, civil unrest, and armed conflict.”

“Any U.S. interest would have to be careful about who they're dealing with and how they're interacting with Libya,” said Lee, the international trade lawyer in Seattle. “They don't want to cross those tripwires that sanctions have set up.”

He added the U.S. is “facing global competition more and more from the Chinese. And so I think this project sounds interesting, but because of where it's located and the type of project it is there will be all sorts of complications.”

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