WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is pushing lawmakers to revive the U.S. Export and Import Bank, by breaking the logjam that has prevented the bank from operating since 2015.
Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, criticized lawmakers for creating a “needless conundrum.”
“The Exim Bank does not have a quorum because U.S. Congress has refused to confirm nominees this administration has sent to Capitol Hill,” he said at the Exim Bank’s annual conference on March 28. “These nominees have not been voted down. They are not even reaching the floor for votes.”
The bank provides loans and other credit tools to help U.S. businesses that seek to export their products to foreign markets.
In addition, the bank’s mandate is set to expire Sept. 30 and hence, reauthorization is an extra challenge facing the bank this year.
The bank funds large multinational corporations such as Boeing, Caterpillar, and GE. It’s also an important source of credit for small businesses.
Critical to National Security
The White House believes the credit agency’s role is crucial for both economic and national security purposes. It’s an important tool to compete with other countries such as China that have strong export-finance agencies, according to Navarro.“We are getting hammered—particularly by China, South Korea, and the other countries in the G-7,” he said.
Hobbling the bank costs tens of billions of dollars to U.S. corporations and thousands of job losses, he added.
According to Navarro, China’s export credit agency had an estimated $363 billion in medium and long-term loans in 2017 compared to U.S. Exim bank’s $70 billion.
Since the bank lost its quorum in 2015, the U.S. economy has lost $21 billion in overseas opportunities, he said, adding that transactions worth $40 billion are still sitting in the bank’s pipeline.
However, Democrats and business-oriented Republicans have supported the revival of the bank. In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed legislation that reauthorized the bank through Sept. 30, 2019.
Critics argue that the bank is used as a tool by the United States to subsidize its exports by providing below-market interest rate loans and loan guarantees for American companies. They claim that the majority of its loans in dollar terms go to a small number of politically connected giant corporations.