Last week, Boeing confirmed the purchase by China of 300 planes for the listed price of $37 billion. This deal occurred without any backing from the infamous Export-Import Bank of the United States—an outfit that lowers the cost of borrowing for foreign companies when they buy some American goods, such as Boeing aircraft.
This is interesting because anyone listening to many lawmakers and the special interests that used to benefit from the Ex-Im Bank (e.g., Boeing, General Electric and the National Associations of Manufacturers) wouldn’t know that such trade is possible in an era when the agency has been incapacitated.
Indeed, for well over two years now, Ex-Im hasn’t been able to subsidize foreign companies abroad or at home because its charter expired for five months. Even once it was reauthorized, the bank didn’t have enough members on its board to authorize deals over $10 million. That was over 85 percent of Ex-Im activities in the past.
During a recent confirmation hearing for former Rep. Scott Garrett (R – N.J.) as the head of the agency, many senators deemed the state of the bank a grave injustice. Yet though his nomination would put Ex-Im back in business entirely, they still hope to block him. You see, Garrett was a staunch opponent of the Ex-Im Bank when he was in Congress, so he’s exactly the kind of guy who could bring much-needed accountability and transparency to the agency, writes Veronique de Rugy.
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