It depends on what you define as belly fat. If you are overweight with even distribution of fat all over your body or with most fat around your thighs and buttocks (pear shape) and some belly fat, you need to lose weight, exercise and while you are slimming down the belly fat will eventually go away. Though the fat might not go away from your belly first.
If you are what is called apple shape, relatively slim legs and buttocks, with most fat accumulated around your waist line and your back, it is likely that you have hormonal disbalance and either overproduction of adrenalin or adrenal fatigue. This is often result of stress though some people obviously have genetic predisposition. In that case strict diet and lots of exercise that are viewed by your body as additional stress will only make your condition worse. You will keep metabolizing muscles for fuel (and your hips and buttocks will keep getting thinner as that is where you have your biggest muscles) and your belly will keep getting diproportionally bigger as your body will keep storing fat there to fight future famine. In that case you will not see much improvement untill you distress your life and eat diet that supports normal adrenal functioning. There is a lot of information on internet on that recently, but if I could put it into few words: normalize your sleep, give yourself some rest, do not starve your body, eat small portions but before you feel famished, choose exercise activities that trick your body into thinking that you are not really exercising at all (walking vs jogging, multiple short bursts of activity during the day vs staying in the gym for 2 hours in a row, something you enjoy and that calms your mind vs something that you drag yourself through because it is "healthy" ) I.e. if your problem is just extra weight, you can follow any strategy you want, if you problem is hormonal disbalance, just losing weight will not help until you fix the hormonal problem, as you body will still retain its shape, only with different percentage of fat. I am sure all of us have met those skinny people with no waist.
The first thing you lose on a diet is your sense of humor. ~ Author Unknown
It doesn’t matter what diet you follow… What matters is what makes you follow your diet. ~ Tom Venuto