1,053 Business Organizations: Failing to Renew Ex-Im Bank Would Put U.S. Economy at a 'Unique Disadvantage'
…1,053 organizations from across the country are writing to urge your support for long-term reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) before its charter expires on June 30. Ex-Im provides loans, loan guarantees and export credit insurance to help cover financing gaps for American exporters. It helps level the playing field for U.S. companies seeking new sales in fiercely competitive global markets.
Last year, Ex-Im provided financing or guarantees for $27.5 billion in U.S. exports, thereby supporting more than 164,000 American jobs at 3,300 companies. The Bank's support is especially important to small and medium-sized businesses, which account for nearly 90 percent of the Bank's transactions. Tens of thousands of smaller companies that supply goods and services to large exporters also benefit from Ex-Im's activities.
Not only does Ex-Im directly support American jobs, it operates at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Ex-Im charges fees for its services, follows rigorous accounting and risk-management standards, and its loans are often backed by the collateral of the goods being exported. As a result, Ex-Im's default rate has consistently been less than two percent over the past eight decades, a default rate lower than commercial banks.
Failure to secure a long-term reauthorization of Ex-Im would amount to unilateral disarmament in the face of other governments' far more aggressive export credit programs, which have provided their own exporters with significant financing support in recent years. The export credit agencies of our top trading partners provide nearly half a trillion dollars in official export credit financing annually to their exporters – about 18 times more export credit assistance to their exporters than Ex-Im did for U.S. exporters last year.
If Ex-Im is not reauthorized before June 30, American companies would be put at a unique disadvantage in global markets, resulting immediately in lost sales and lost jobs. U.S. businesses of all sizes would be deprived of a vital financing source at a time when boosting exports is increasingly vital to growing our nation's economy and jobs.