The Export-Import Bank this year celebrated 90 years in business. Established during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, it helps U.S. exporters with buyer financing they may not find from the private sector. Today the Exim faces a strong challenge from China’s export credit agency as the great powers competition intensifies. Here on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with an update on where the agency is headed, Exim Chairman Reta Jo Lewis.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin And probably for those that may not know, and there are even some feds that know precisely what the EXIM Bank does, just briefly review that for us.

Reta Jo Lewis We’re really excited to be able to talk with your audience today. EXIM Bank, as you mentioned, is a 90-year-old- institution that was founded back in 1934 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And the mission when he outlined in the first executive order, is the same mission that we hold true today in the Biden-Harris administration. And that is one about facilitating exports and supporting U.S. jobs. And we are there to be the institution as an export credit agency to provide the financing tools to be able to step in and to help our companies level the playing field when they are facing competition as they’re out competing for global sales. We are an institution that also provides of financing products such as working capital guarantees, direct loans, as well as export and credit insurance products.

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Tom Temin And what’s the value of what you’ve got on the street at the moment?

Reta Jo Lewis We have actually, in the reauthorization that took place in December of 2019, EXIM Bank had a lending cap from Congress, received a lending cap from Congress of $135 billion. We’ve deployed about $35 billion of that lending cap, and we have another 100 billion to go. And we’re just out every single day talking about the work that we do. How can we support small, medium and large businesses with the types of financing that we have available?

Tom Temin And how do you identify prospect companies or how do they come to find the EXIM?

Reta Jo Lewis We are, first of all, we are demand driven agency. So that means that anything that’s walking in the door, we are really having an ability to look at everything from small businesses to medium sized businesses to large businesses. We have been for decades funding everything from large transportation aircrafts to energy and telecommunications projects. But one of the things I always like to say to when I’m speaking is that, I always say go to the website. And really it is very important because it’s EXIM.gov, and it’s an opportunity for people right then to hear from businesses, men and women who are exporting and they tell their story. And in telling that story, it can actually, I believe, help give the confidence to American businesses and entrepreneurs who are looking for additional financial resources when they can’t get it from the traditional sources of a bank. And so on EXIMs website, we have applications right there where people can go in and apply for EXIM financing. Also, we have 12 regional offices around the United States, and we have 18 regional executives who are constantly along with headquarter staff, myself and our directors always out at tradeshows and working with different delegations, whether it is American businesses who are exporting or want to export, or whether it’s the foreign buyer who comes into the U.S., who wants to purchase US goods and services to be exported for their products.

Tom Temin So if a startup company, say, is coming to its second round of financing, for example, and they have the prospect of heavy foreign sales, maybe the traditional financiers will say, well, we’ll go this far with you. You would come in and fill in maybe with loans to help expedite the foreign transaction.

Reta Jo Lewis You’re absolutely right. For any size business, any business entrepreneur who is looking for a financing solutions for them to grow their business or for them to compete for sales they are looking for financing to be able to do that. And EXIM Bank as an export credit agency is one of the economic tools in the US tool kit that they can definitely turn to. We work very much in close collaboration with all of our other colleagues, whether they are from the Department of Commerce, whether they’re from the Small Business Administration and from our Development Finance Corporation. So we don’t try to do that walk alone. We really want to work in collaboration together. And that’s why the work that so many of us do, we call a whole of government because we all each have different products that can help a particular business.

Tom Temin We are speaking with Reta Jo Lewis. She is chairwoman and president of the EXIM Bank. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, I guess is the full name of the agency. We should give it that. And you mentioned the 2019 reauthorization, that was controversial. There’s been some rocky politics in recent years just to get the EXIM established, reestablished by Congress. 2019, now you are authorized to when?

Reta Jo Lewis 2026 of December. And you were absolutely right. Those were some lean years, because EXIM was closed for almost four years starting in 2014. And then, of course COVID hit of into it right when the bank was reauthorized. But we’re really fortunate that through a bipartisan with bipartisan support, EXIM has been reauthorized through December of 2026. It was a seven year reauthorization, it’s the longest in EXIM history. And we are really very fortunate that the Office of Management and Budget has given us the approval within the administration to go to Congress to ask for early reauthorization. And that early reauthorization is so critical because we see when you’re out looking for financing, you want to be confident in where with within that facility. And we want to be able to show that continued confidence for the for the private sector who wants to come to EXIM, especially for long term financing. But from a bipartisan perspective, we’re very fortunate that there’s a number of areas, as is all of our major stakeholders, which is Congress, because we are a fellow federally authorized agency by the US Congress, that there’s so many issues that are coming before us. You started out by saying in terms of the great competition with China, when we see where the competitors are out there, the competition is fierce. And with that, we believe that American companies are the best. We think they drive the innovation for the future.

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Reta Jo Lewis But one of the things that they do face is competition from others. And they definitely face competition from the PRC in the People’s Republic of China. And one of the things that we’re very fortunate is that Congress gave us some additional tools when we were reauthorized. And within those tools, they gave us some specific mandates. They asked us to make that lending cap of 135 billion, make more of it available for what we call transformational exports. Those transformational exports range everything from semiconductors,  AI, quantum computing, wastewater, renewables, fintech, biotech, biomedical. They also asked us to make more financing available in sub-Saharan Africa. They asked us to make more financing available in the renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage space. But one of the things that always excites us, they to truly ask us to make more financing available for small business. And so we say not small business, just a small business sector, but really looking at women entrepreneurship, looking at underserved communities, looking at minorities, looking at whether it’s veterans, whether it’s LGBT communities, and definitely, of course, in the rural communities. And we are very happy to say that in this most recent fiscal year, we have authorized this year $8.4 billion of financing in 80 and 1.7 billion of that was in small business. And one of the things that people hear about the large deals that we do, but a lot of people really don’t understand that EXIM is an institution. And I always like to say we’re the bank for everybody. And with that, over 85% of our transactions are with small business. And people don’t realize that. And we celebrate that every day. And that is always on our website.

Tom Temin And I want to get to that China question, because they’re also exporting and they are also doing infrastructure all over the world. They’re also very active in Africa, which is a rich area in many ways yet to be developed. But my personal story, I went to Cambodia last year as part of a vacation, and it has this unbelievable new airport deserted but brand spanking new. I was like one of the first week of flights in there to near Siem Reap. And I said there’s got to be China. And sure enough, China built it, and they built the 30 mile road into the city that didn’t exist before. And so you’ve got some strategic, major types of things for which China, whether it’s through their credit agency, their export credit agency or whatever mechanism, their whole of government, you’ve got some big things going on around the world. And is that part of the charter that you see?

Reta Jo Lewis Well, when you talk about the PRC, the PRC invests in a different way. Everyone knows we’re a capitalist society, and we do not have state owned enterprises that they have where they take their state owned enterprises financing and put it behind projects all over the world. America is all about how can we help the individual business man or woman and businesses succeed. And with that, we are very excited to be able to use the types of flexibilities that Congress has been able to allow us to have to help America’s businesses. And when I say that, that means that through what we call our China Transformation Exports Program (CTEP), it allows us to be able to give some longer terms and some reduce fees and to work on ensuring that our companies can compete. One of the things we know is that price is not going to be won, we’re not in a race to the bottom. We are really about ensuring that the companies have the financing that we’re able to provide with the flexibilities around terms and tenor and reduce fees for them to be able to compete.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Reta Jo Lewis. She is the chairwoman of the EXIM Bank. We are up against a commercial. Can you stick with me for one more segment? All right. We’ll be right back. And before the break, we were discussing the competition with China. And the way you described the EXIMS way of going about that is more like sparring instead of trying to meet them head to head, but using American ways and American values, is that a fair way to put it.

Reta Jo Lewis It is all about American values. One of the things is that we believe that our American companies are the best. We have the best innovation, we have the best technological standards. We are also, it’s very much important to us as an export credit agency. We’re jobs agency. And when we are out working with our businesses, we are constantly talking to them about, it’s not just about jobs in the United States, it’s about jobs around the world. It’s about the service that our workers can also provide out there. So we firmly believe that with these new tools, it gives us an ability to help our companies compete, especially in places in Asia as well as in places in sub-Saharan Africa. We’ve actually seen our authorizations increase exponentially. Just this past year, we were able to authorize over $1.6 billion of work around in the green energy transition space, everything from mini grids to rural electrification. And that was in Angola. And then the year before, we had done about 907 million of a renewable energy project around solar in Angola, again, which is the largest renewable project we’ve ever done on the continent and the largest renewable project that we’ve ever done at EXIM. And so we have to constantly keep modernizing the work that we do, and also have to be constantly, aggressively talking about how we want to support American businesses.

Tom Temin And there are many of the other nations that are allies with us that are in our sphere that also have export credit agencies, and there’s competition there too. Fair to say?

Reta Jo Lewis So there’s competitions, but I will also tell you with our allies and friends, there’s much more collaboration. And with that collaboration, I’ll give you an example, we just actually came from Australia one month ago where with the Australian ECA, we were able to form a one stop shop method of where we can work for applications that are being taken in by both institution. For us to specifically work around work on projects like large infrastructure projects, renewables and more importantly also for critical minerals. We most recently again was with in London with UKEF, the United Kingdom’s ECA, where we collaborated around the fact that they have a major offering for US companies that’s going to be working in the nuclear space. And we were there to support the three American companies that are have been included in the next round of selection.

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Tom Temin That’s an area where there’s some really new innovation. There is nothing like the grandma’s nuclear plant.

Reta Jo Lewis There is nothing like that. We are supporting everything from micro to small nuclear reactors to large nuclear reactors, and was really glad to be there with our collaborator and potential partner, UK ECA. Because, these projects have very large, EXIM definitely has the experience, the expertise and the ability to analyze these projects, whether it’s from a legal perspective, what is from an engineering and environmental perspective. And we’re really looking forward to working in collaborating with our G7 partners, our friends and allies who are members of the G20, members of the Quad, everyone from the Japan, the Australia’s in India. And we have signed probably over a 30 MOUs  in the last two and a half years that really has been able to reset our relationships with our allies and friends and collaborators. And then most recently we just did a $300 million transaction with our friends from Finland and a major project around 5G with Reliance Jio.

Tom Temin You really are enthusiastic about all of this.

Reta Jo Lewis This is great work to do, because you can see the direct impact. Just last week I was in Philadelphia with Bassett ice Cream. Bassett, who is now being run by the president, who is the great, great, great grandson of the founder of Bassett, which is one of the oldest ice cream companies in the United States. And we were there with Alex who’s the president, the young president, and he was there along with Mayor Parker and myself, talking about how EXIM has helped them expand throughout the world, predominantly in Asia. And they’re looking at other markets. And he was very clear when he said they would not have done exporting and have been able to grow the company and employ the types of people that he wants to without the support of the export credit insurance products that he has used over the years, and his father and grandfather has used over the years to grow their business.

Tom Temin All right. So we’re exporting both nuclear power and cholesterol.

Reta Jo Lewis Yes.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Reta Jo Lewis. She is the chairwoman of the EXIM Bank. So to summarize, basically than you would characterize this function as both economic and national security?

Reta Jo Lewis Well, we are not a national security agency, but it is totally about economic security. And we’re very fortunate that most recently when Jake Sullivan, who’s the assistant to the president for national security, was giving a major speech last week at Brookings Institution, he actually called for and said that along with DFC and the reauthorization for the Africa Growth Opportunity Act, that EXIM Bank was one of the major tools that the US uses in our arsenal as we’re out competing from a commercial diplomacy standpoint. And that he actually, too, was calling for that Congress has an opportunity to reauthorize. So I can tell you that as we have seen what has taken place with all the geopolitical events that’s shaping our world, and into the future, EXIM bank is one of the, I believe, one of the strongest tools that we can use in order to help assist and grow our American businesses.

Tom Temin So you’ve got to get that other hundred billion dollars, though, out there.

Reta Jo Lewis We got to get that $100 billion out there. We got to be supporting businesses small, medium and large. We always say from a transaction perspective, nothing’s too small for us, nothing’s too large. And we’re very unique in the sense that being able to be an agency that is self-financing, one who was 2014, we were not doing so well. But now in the last two years, we will be this year returning over $80 million to the US taxpayer. So we have an admin budget of about 140 million and to be able to return $80 million back to the taxpayers really is very exciting to be to showcase the work that our team has done.

Tom Temin And I wanted to ask you also about the agency itself. How many employees, and you don’t have a really good ranking in the best places to work? What are you doing on that front?

Reta Jo Lewis We have to work really hard. And I will tell you, one of the things that we have definitely seen is that when we were really closed from 2014, 2018, in those scores, we’ve never really been an agency that has fared very well. But I will tell you, in the last two years we have done exceptional work in terms of working with our employees to ensure that from a wellness perspective, from a work in terms of how to using new technology, basically making sure that we are training and retraining them with the new skills that they need to move into the 21st century. We have to listen, and we also have to take into account the things that they need. It’s an agency now where we are all having to return back to work or return back to the office because everybody’s still working. And we’re really excited to move aggressively forward in how to make us a better place to be seen as a better place to work.

Tom Temin And a final question. You have a Chamber of Commerce background in your own professional history, and recently there is a memorandum of understanding with the European American Chamber of Commerce. Just a brief explanation of what that’s all about.

Reta Jo Lewis Well, actually, they are some of our strongest allies and friends and working with the Chamber of Commerce, I’m as you said, I’m a former U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive. And this probably not one city or state or country that I actually travel to that I’m not talking to those trade associations which are very focused on business, whether it is the women’s associations or the focused associations or associations focused on minorities or large business or small business. They’re the ones that are the direct advocate for those businesses, just as the Department of Commerce, Department Commercial Services. And so we’d like to go to those meetings and participate in those delegations because we want to hear directly from them as to what they think we need to be doing, and what else that we can do for them, and also to assure them that we’re going to be there with the financing tools when they’re out there competing for these types of projects large, medium or small.

Tom Temin So stability is good.

Reta Jo Lewis Stability is really, really good. And that’s why that early reauthorization that OMB has us out being in support of is very important.

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