U.S. Export-Import Bank

Nations love exports — and the jobs and tax revenue that come with them. The U.S. was desperate for more of them during the Great Depression when it created a national bank to finance loans for exports. That was the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., which was so successful at expanding exports that scores of other nations copied the model. But small-government advocates shut down the bank in 2015, saying it distorted the free market by using tax dollars to pick business winners and losers. Its supporters didn’t give up. The bank, seen as a success story for most of its 83 years, has (sort of) come back to life.

Wilbur Ross, President Donald Trump’s secretary of commerce, said in his confirmation hearing that there could be justifications for keeping the Export-Import Bank going. He appears to have convinced the president, who in mid-April said he supported keeping the bank, after having denounced it on the campaign trail. He’ll have to convince some congressional Republicans, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, who’s called the bank’s practices “crony capitalism” because two-thirds of its money went to just 10 companies. Congress let the bank’s lending authority expire after June 30, 2015, but enough Republicans in the House joined Democrats to force a vote that October to bring back the lender. In December 2015, negotiators from both chambers of Congress reached an agreement that revived the bank’s lending authority through September 2019. Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican who opposes the bank, then took matters into his own hands. He’s held up votes for nominees to the Ex-Im board, preventing the bank from having the quorum needed to approve loans of more than $10 million. Ex-Im’s lending has been tepid since then.