Graham secures votes on EXIM Bank reauthorization

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said he was pleased with the agreement reached in the Senate that will allow the body to vote on reauthorization of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank. Graham said, “I’ve never felt better about the opportunity to reauthorize EXIM Bank than I do today. I want to thank Majority Leader McConnell and my Senate colleagues for working together to ensure a vote on the bank’s reauthorization in June before its charter expires. However, the most important aspect of the agreement is we will also have the opportunity to vote on EXIM reauthorization attached to the Highway Trust Fund reauthorization. I’m confident the combination of these two votes will demonstrate strong bipartisan support for the bank and will ultimately lead to its reauthorization.” Graham noted EXIM is crucial to many of the top manufacturing companies in South Carolina, including Boeing’s 787 production in North Charleston and General Electric’s gas turbine production in Greenville. Approximately eight out of every ten Boeing 787 Dreamliners that have been built in South Carolina are eligible for EXIM financing. The facility employs more than 7,000 people in South Carolina and is responsible for thousands of associated jobs. “The biggest beneficiary of closing down the Bank will be China. If EXIM and its competitive financing go away, the United States will lose the market share we have today. I’m not willing to unilaterally disarm when all of our competitors have EXIM Banks. As a matter of fact, China’s EXIM Bank is bigger than the banks of the United States, France, England, and Germany combined. Would I like to live in a world where there were no EXIM Banks? Sure. But the world I refuse to live in is one where we shut our EXIM Bank down and China keeps theirs open. I am not doing that. That is unilateral surrender,” continued Graham. Established in 1934, the Bank guarantees loans and credit to businesses otherwise unable to operate through private lenders. Nearly 90% of the Bank’s transactions each year directly benefit small businesses, and the Bank supports more than 205,000 American jobs. In 2013, the Bank returned more than $1 billion to the United States Treasury.