Nik Foster is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Previously, Foster served as deputy China advisor for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In this role, he co-led the development of an agency-wide, global strategy to compete with and counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. He also cowrote USAID’s China strategy and oversaw global implementation efforts across more than eighty USAID missions. Foster also led USAID’s Economic Coercion Task Force and its participation in the White House Countering Economic Coercion Task Force.

Before joining USAID, Foster worked on international energy planning projects in Pakistan and Ukraine and developed energy and water plans for all continental US Department of Defense installations. He also cowrote the US Department of Energy’s Distributed Wind Market Report and led communications for the Pacific Northwest Smartgrid Demonstration project.

Foster has an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he studied Chinese energy policy.