Report: Trump planning Export-Import Bank revival

The administration reportedly aims to install Kimberly Reed as president and breathe new life into an essentially dormant agency.    The White House is planning moves that would breathe new life into the long-dormant U.S. Export-Import Bank, according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal.
   President Donald Trump reportedly is looking to install Kimberly Reed as president of the agency, which provides financing in the form of loan guarantees, credit insurance and direct loans to buyers of U.S. exports, as well as working capital guarantees and credit insurance to mostly small and midsized U.S. exporters.
   The Senate Banking Committee in December rejected former Republican Congressman Scott Garrett’s nomination following an outpouring of concern from the industry about further crippling a financial institution that supports U.S. exports.
   In late 2015, then-Rep. Garrett was part of a handful of lawmakers that blocked the reauthorization of the bank, briefly shutting down its operations before Senate leaders attached funding legislation to a transportation bill in order to push it through Congress.
   Since then, however, the Ex-Im Bank essentially has been operating with one hand tied behind its back because its board has not had a quorum. Agency rules require three of the bank’s five board seats to be filled to approve financing in amounts larger than $10 million, and for many companies seeking trade finance assistance for large export-oriented projects, that $10 million ceiling is far too low.
   With Acting Bank Chairman and President Charles Hall having left in December and Acting Vice Chairman Scott Schloegel announcing his resignation in March, the Ex-Im Bank currently has none of its five board seats filled.
   Also in December, the Senate Banking Committee favorably reported the nominations of Reed, as well as Spencer Bachus, Judith Pryor and Claudia Slacik to the Ex-Im Bank board, but the final approval has, so far, been stalled in the full Senate.
   According to the WSJ report, Reed’s nomination to lead the bank “would be a victory for the business-friendly faction of the GOP and for large U.S. manufacturers such as Boeing Co. and General Electric Co.”
   Reed, who most recently served as president of the International Food Information Council Foundation and before that was senior adviser to U.S. Treasury Secretaries John Snow and Henry Paulson and led the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, declined to comment on the latest speculation, but said at her nomination hearing in December that the hobbling of the Ex-Im Bank amounts to “unilateral disarmament” for U.S. exporters.
   Jeffrey Gerrish, the Ex-Im Bank’s acting president, told WSJ in a written statement, “By restoring the Export-Import Bank’s board quorum, EXIM will be able to help level the playing field.”