Republicans’ Export-Import Bank Shutdown Is Hurting Local Businesses
House Republicans’ misguided, ideological crusade against the Export-Import Bank is already harming American businesses across the country. Take a look at how their politically-motivated decision to shut down the Bank earlier this month is impacting local communities and constituents in their districts:
“[Republicans] are out to kill the Export-Import Bank of the United States, an agency that provides financing for foreign buyers of American goods. If they succeed, it will be a monumentally stupid, self-inflicted wound to the economy.” [USA Today, 7/13/15]
California: “‘It's going to be devastating for us,’ said Don Nelson, chief executive of ProGauge Technologies Inc., a Bakersfield manufacturer of oil industry equipment. ‘Basically, we just won't be able to export anymore.’” [Los Angeles Times, 6/26/15]
“Newport Beach, California-based Firm Green Inc, for example, fears it may lose its second major Philippines green energy project in a year to the uncertainty over Ex-Im's future. Last year, it was beaten to a landfill gas deal by a South Korean firm with export credit agency financing as Congress debated the same issues. Now, FirmGreen president Steve Wilburn said he is now trying to persuade the developers of the Philippines' biggest-ever solar power plant to stick with his Ex-Im-backed design and construction proposal. But he says time is running out to keep the $203 million, 100-megawatt project from going to China's Trina Solar Ltd as an August construction launch date looms. ‘We are promising that Ex-Im will be reauthorized and that financing will be available,’ said Wilburn, whose firm has 11 employees and contracts out its manufacturing work. ‘Foreign ECAs (export credit agencies) and their supported manufacturers are champing at the bit to feast on FirmGreen's bones.’” [Yahoo News, 6/24/15]
Georgia: “Then there’s Gulfstream, a vital industrial employer and corporate presence in our community. Ten years ago, 18 percent of the fleet was based outside the United States. Today that figure is 35 percent. Sixty percent of its backlog is international. Make no mistake: The Export-Import Bank makes a difference here.” [Savannah Morning News, 6/26/15]
Illinois: “Not only does the Export-Import Bank support job-creating Illinois companies such as Deere & Co. and Caterpillar, but 90 percent of its transactions directly serve American small businesses, like GSI, an agriculture equipment manufacturer based in Assumption and many more across our state. Reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank is especially critical in today’s globalized economy where Illinois companies are not only competing against those from Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana, but those from China, India and from all corners of the globe.” [Rockford Register Star, 6/27/15]
Indiana: “‘We could never work with these companies without the Export-Import Bank,' [Bruce] McFee [chairman and CEO of Sullivan-Palatek] said. ‘Before we could not find a private creditor to help us with this… Soon it will be impossible,’ McFee said, to get new foreign business, which is typically the company’s largest orders.” [South Bend Tribune, 6/28/15]
Minnesota: “[Killing the Export-Import Bank] would certainly put a dent in our capabilities and would have a ripple effect on people here and backward through our machine shops and material suppliers,' [Phoenix Solutions Co. President Douglas Frame] said … This will come as bad news to a number of large and small businesses in Minnesota. Since 2007, Ex-Im Bank has helped 217 companies in the state secure $3 billion in foreign sales, the government said.” [Star Tribune, 6/27/15]
New York: “[Susan Axelrod] began making quiches in her home kitchen in 1973, and grew her company, Love & Quiches Gourmet, in part by exporting her products to places such as Qatar and Japan... If the bank's charter is not reauthorized, ‘the U.S. is going to lose our exporting power,’ Axelrod said. ‘China and other exporting countries are chomping at the bit to take that business.’ She said as much as 30 percent of her business comes from international markets.” [CNBC, 6/29/15]
North Carolina: “As the federal Export-Import Bank prepares to sunset because of Congressional inaction, local companies that rely on the bank are not enjoying the view. ‘It would be a real shame if the Export-Import Bank program is not continued,’ Russell La Belle, president of Wilmington Machinery, said Monday. His company has used the services of the bank to help sell its blow molding and plastic injection molding machinery abroad.” [WilmingtonBiz, 6/27/15]
Ohio: “[Richard] Rogovin [chairman of U.S. Bridge Corp], whose 140-employee firm makes steel bridge kits in Cambridge, Ohio, said some of his customers in Africa and South America are now talking to Chinese, British and French manufacturers that have unwavering support from their countries' trade banks. ‘It's almost like the customers sense that this country is withdrawing from international finance,’ he added.” [Yahoo News, 6/24/15]
Pennsylvania: “‘We may continue to develop the technology in the U.S., but we may have to move our factory overseas just so I can get a foreign country to give me financing for goods and services made in that country,’ said Danny Roderick, chief executive of Westinghouse, which is based in Cranberry Township, Pa… But concern over the credibility of Ex-Im Bank as a financing partner has softened the market, he said. Westinghouse says it could also forfeit the ability to expand in Mexico, Brazil and the Middle East. ‘With Ex-Im gone, I’m out of those countries.’” [Wall Street Journal, 6/9/15]
South Carolina: “Greenville is home to a G.E. facility that uses Ex-Im Bank financing to export gas turbines made by several thousand workers. Boeing, in North Charleston, employs about 8,000 people to build its 787 plane; seven out of 10 airplanes are sold with bank help, [Senator Lindsey] Graham said. Local suppliers to Boeing and G.E. also support the bank, along with other small businesses that benefit from the bank’s programs. Jay White is president of Morrison Textile Machinery Company in Fort Lawn, which employs 90 people and, with Ex-Im assistance, exports 90 percent of its products to places including Turkey, Bangladesh, India and Ethiopia. A lifelong Republican, he called opposition to the bank ‘mind-bending.’” [New York Times, 6/18/15]
Tennessee: “The secret to Jackson’s success is not a secret at all: the Export-Import Bank of the United States has played a key role in keeping manufacturing lines humming across Western Tennessee and workers employed here in Jackson.” [The Jackson Sun, 6/27/15]
Texas: Ricky Muloweni, who runs an equipment wholesale firm based in Dallas, is currently working to buy $5 million in equipment and fertilizer for an Angolan commercial landscaping company. But the uncertainty over Ex-Im means the next phase of construction likely won’t go to an American supplier. ‘The Chinese are dangling money in front of them,’ he said of Angolan businesses, even though ‘they know the product they get from China is not as good as they would get from here.’” [Wall Street Journal, 6/9/15]
“Ionel Nechiti [president of Platform Management] wants his company and its subsidiaries, including a local valve manufacturer, to export more of the products they make. He says dissolving the U.S. Export-Import Bank could put those plans at risk and force the companies to hire overseas.” [Houston Chronicle, 5/7/15]
Washington: “‘The lapse creates a competitive challenge for us,’ wrote Boeing Capital Corporation Communications Director Allison Bone in an email. ‘Airbus has three government export credit agencies supporting its sales. We have ongoing campaigns with airlines that have used the bank in the past and could need to use it again.’” [Puget Sound Business Journal, 6/26/15]
The uncertainty surrounding the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization is a “good thing” for our competitors in the global marketplace:
China: “Zhao Changhui, the Export-Import Bank of China's chief country risk analyst, said he would regret the possible demise of the bank's U.S. counterpart, but that it would help China's competitiveness. ‘With respect to competition in strategy and policies between the U.S. and China, this is a good thing’ for China, Zhao told reporters at a forum in Yiwu.” [Yahoo News, 6/24/15]
India: “With US Exim Bank closing down, we would now have more market, because, Indian products were competed by US products. Now that competition will go away, [said Yaduvendra Mathur, chairman and managing director of Export-Import Bank of India].” [Business Standard, 7/20/15]
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