[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 7, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2660-S2661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Export-Import Bank

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, many Americans might be surprised, shocked, 
and troubled to learn that some of their tax dollars are going directly 
to Chinese companies and that some of those dollars even go to 
corporations owned by the Chinese Government, like Chinese banks, 
Chinese development agencies, and Chinese microprocessor factories. In 
recent years, in fact, China received $50 million in loans and 
guarantees, all backed by American citizens.
  Taxpayers would be right to be puzzled and concerned about why their 
hard-earned money is subsidizing Chinese state-owned companies. To be 
clear, we are not talking about voluntary investment from American 
businesses; we are taking about the backing of the U.S. Government. 
They might ask: How is this the case? Why on Earth would we do this? 
Why is this happening? The answer has to do with the very institution 
to which we are going to be trying to confirm nominees today.
  The Export-Import Bank--or Ex-Im, as it is often described--was 
created during the height of the Great Depression to help U.S. 
exporters when they were desperate for customers and foreign markets 
lacked the capital to finance trade. It was conceived particularly to 
help small businesses to be able to compete, as many of its current 
proponents still claim, still insist, to this very day.
  But for decades, the institution that is the Export-Import Bank has 
unfortunately been used as a giant tool for corporate welfare. Ex-Im 
has operated to benefit the wealthiest and the most politically 
connected businesses in America, as well as their overseas clients and, 
believe it or not, foreign governments. Take Boeing, for instance. 
Look, it is no coincidence that Ex-Im has been nicknamed ``Boeing's 
bank.'' When Ex-Im financing was at its peak, Boeing received 70 
percent of all Export-Import Bank loan guarantees and 40 percent of all 
Ex-Im dollars.
  Which other large corporations have benefited? Well, they include 
General Electric, John Deere, Caterpillar, and other industrial 
giants--hardly businesses that are unable to get financing elsewhere; 
hardly businesses that fit within the category of what the biggest 
proponents of Ex-Im claim need Ex-Im to exist in the first place.
  In fact, while Ex-Im claims that 90 percent of the businesses to 
which it provides support are ``small businesses,'' when you dive into 
those numbers, the numbers tell a somewhat different story. They show 
that small businesses received only about 25 percent of Ex-Im dollars. 
That doesn't even touch the fact that in 2014 Caterpillar and Boeing 
were the first and fourth largest recipients of so-called small 
business funds from Ex-Im. So if Boeing and Caterpillar--great U.S. 
companies that employ tens of thousands of hard-working Americans and 
make good products used by people all over the world--if they can be 
considered small businesses, it makes you question the vernacular used 
by Export-Import Bank proponents.
  Looking at the Bank's track record as a whole, only one-half of 1 
percent of all small businesses in America actually benefit from 
Export-Import financing--a very small tip of a very large iceberg; a 
very small portion of all business enterprises in the United States. It 
makes one question, why, then, do we have one entity that is set up to 
provide such a large benefit to so few businesses?

[[Page S2661]]

  It is a similar story on the foreign side. Abroad, Ex-Im has largely 
benefited big companies that already collect massive subsidies as 
state-controlled entities and entities that can easily get private 
financing elsewhere.
  The No. 1 buyer of exports subsidized by Ex-Im between 2007 and 2013 
was Pemex. For those not familiar with Pemex, it is the notoriously 
corrupt petroleum company owned by the Mexican Government. Pemex, which 
has a market cap of $416 billion, received more than $7 billion in 
loans backed by U.S. taxpayers. Why?
  During the same period, Ex-Im backed $3.4 billion in financing to 
Emirates Airlines--a company wholly owned by the Government of Dubai--
for Emirates' purchase of Boeing planes.
  Indeed, a large share of Ex-Im financing has historically gone to 
foreign airlines and to foreign energy companies--businesses that are, 
in fact, competing with American companies.
  Now, not that there is anything wrong with competition. It is great. 
Competition ought to exist. Competition improves quality, and it brings 
down prices. But why is it that we, as the U.S. Government, are in many 
instances financing the competitors of U.S. businesses--competitors 
that in many instances are owned by foreign governments? Moreover, we 
have been sending money to countries that in many cases have what we 
would describe as dubious records on human rights and high levels of 
corruption.
  In the last 5 years, Saudi Arabia and Mexico were the top foreign 
recipients of Export-Import Bank aid, and in the past, when Ex-Im had 
the authority to grant larger subsidies, the top foreign recipient was 
typically China. In 2014, China received $2.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer-
backed loans and guarantees with most of it going to businesses owned 
by the Chinese Government. If it weren't so sad, this would be funny. 
If it weren't so strange, it would be interesting. To top it all off, 
Ex-Im has had poor accounting and has had rather significant problems 
with transparency.
  In 2013, Ex-Im was either unable or unwilling to provide any 
justification whatsoever for half of the financing deals in its 
portfolio. Here again, this is stunning. I find it troubling that we 
are seriously considering these nominees without first addressing why 
we have the Export-Import Bank in the first place and why there haven't 
been more reforms required before we confirm additional nominees to its 
governing body. There have already been 30 corruption and fraud 
investigations into Ex-Im's activity.
  Now, thankfully, Congress put a check on some of Export-Import Bank's 
power back in 2015 when we allowed the Board's quorum to expire, and 
thus, we capped its ability to make deals larger than $10 million.
  In the past few years, 66 percent of Ex-Im's loans have actually gone 
to small businesses instead of the Boeings and Caterpillars, compared 
to the 25 percent that went to them before. It turns out that the big 
businesses have been doing just fine, even since those limitations 
kicked in a few years ago. In fact, some of them--many of them--are 
doing even better than before. Last year was Boeing's best year yet, 
with exports making a particularly strong showing. As Boeing itself 
admitted, it had ``robust'' private sector financing. According to 
reports in 2017, there were unprecedented levels of competition among 
lenders and insurers to finance aircraft exports.
  It turns out that when the government leaves a profitable line of 
business, private business enterprises do in fact compete in the 
marketplace to take its place, and, as it turns out, private businesses 
make better business decisions than governments. That is the lesson we 
need to take from this. The sky did not fall when these limitations 
kicked in a few years ago, and they would not fall if we continued 
additional reforms, or even, I would dare say, if we phased out the 
Export-Import Bank altogether.
  Furthermore, with the decrease in Ex-Im's subsidies, U.S. exports 
have actually risen slightly. Between 2014 and 2018, exports rose from 
$1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion.
  Yet today the swamp strikes back. The prospect of confirming three 
nominees to the Ex-Im Bank, thanks to the nuking of the Senate rules a 
few weeks back, suggests Boeing's bank will in fact rise from the grave 
to resume its long history of fraud, corruption, abusive power, and 
government manipulation of the marketplace.
  We do not need to further empower the rich and politically connected 
companies that are already flourishing. That only undermines trust in 
our government, which is supposed to protect taxpayers from corruption 
and from waste, and it unilaterally prevents us from having a more 
thriving, more competitive economy--one that would actually produce 
more jobs in America and one that would actually produce things in such 
a way that would benefit more consumers in America. We do not need to 
use this outdated, broken, corrupt Bank as a tool for countering 
foreign interests. We certainly don't need it as a tool for subsidizing 
foreign interests. The way to confront China's and other countries' 
expansionism is certainly not to subsidize their state-owned companies.
  No, we don't need Boeing's bank, and neither do we need Beijing's 
bank. Cronyism and policy privilege threaten exactly, precisely the 
principles upon which our Nation was founded and the principles that 
have fostered the development of the greatest civilization and of the 
strongest economy the world has ever known. They subvert the rule of 
law by codifying inequality and rob ordinary Americans--the moms and 
pops and small business owners--from having a level playing field in 
what is supposed to be the land of opportunity. People's access to 
opportunity shouldn't depend on their access to government. It 
shouldn't depend on their ability to employ an army of lobbyists and 
government consultants. No, it should depend on their ability to 
innovate.
  We are great as a country and we are strong as an economy not because 
of who we are but because of what we do. We have succeeded precisely 
because we have chosen free markets over central planning. We have 
chosen the rights of the individual in a free, open, robust marketplace 
rather than having business decisions made by a government bureaucrat 
in Washington, DC.
  The fact that this might have made sense to those sitting in this 
Chamber and the House of Representatives some eight or nine decades ago 
doesn't mean that it has to make sense now. It doesn't mean that we are 
stuck perpetually in this same path. It certainly shouldn't mean that 
the American people should be required to work days, weeks, and months 
out of every year to fund the Federal Government that includes this 
program, the Export-Import Bank, which ends up giving a whole lot of 
that money to big businesses in America and to state-owned businesses 
abroad to participate in what is supposed to be a free-market economy 
and, thereby, dilutes the power of that economy.
  If we are to move toward restoring fairness to our economy and our 
government, it would be in our best interest to get rid of this 
cronyist Bank altogether. At the very least, we ought not to empower it 
to its full capacity for abuse by confirming these nominees today. I 
will vote against them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The majority whip is 
recognized.