[4] Following a brief lapse in Congressional authorization on July 1, 2015,[5][6] which prevented the bank from engaging in new business,[7] it was reauthorized through September 2019 via the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of December 2015.

[9] Over its lifetime, the Export-Import Bank has helped finance several historic projects including the Pan-American Highway, the Burma Road, and post-World War II reconstruction.

While supporters argue that the bank allows small and medium-sized businesses to participate in the global market, critics allege that it shows favoritism to large corporations and special interests.

The Export–Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) is a government agency that provides a variety of tools intended to aid the export of American goods and services.

[17] The United States Trade Representative and the Secretary of Commerce shall serve, ex officio and without vote, as additional members of the Board of Directors of the Bank.

[7] Five months later, after the successful employment of the rarely used discharge petition procedure in the House of Representatives, Congress reauthorized the bank until September 2019 via the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act signed into law on December 4, 2015, by President Barack Obama.

[8] In December 2019, President Donald Trump signed the Export-Import Bank Extension into law as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (P.L.

[37] EXIM Bank credits and loans supported construction of the Pan-American Highway in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile.

[39] EXIM approved twenty credits to U.S. companies including Caterpillar, Koehring Co., Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing, The Galion Iron Works, and Thew Shovel to help build the highway.

[41] A 1939 journal article in Foreign Affairs noted that China used part of the $25 million to purchase 2,000 three-ton trucks from Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors.

[42] EXIM played a critical role during the years between the end of Lend-Lease (September 1945) and the beginning of the Marshall Plan and the World Bank's first authorizations (May 1947 – 1948).

[44] In 1945 and 1946 credit was offered to France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Italy, Ethiopia, Greece, Poland and Austria to purchase equipment, facilities, and services from the United States.

[45] When the Marshall Plan was initiated in 1948, EXIM concentrated its lending on non-Economic Recovery Act nations in North and South America.

[46] When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the USSR was dissolved in 1991, U.S. companies were able to conduct business freely with Eastern Europe for the first time since the end of WWII.

EXIM was one of the first financial institutions to provide financing for exports to the former Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the newly independent nations that emerged after 1991.

The Bank assists nearly 290,000 export related jobs and each year is helping more and more small and medium-sized manufacturers grow their businesses and hire new workers.

[54] More recently the bank authorized $33.6 million in loans to Abengoa, a Spanish Green energy company on which former Governor Bill Richardson is a member of the board of directors.

[57] However, EXIM supporters note that Boeing is the largest exporter in the United States by dollar value,[58] and must be protected in their capacity as the only remaining comprehensive U.S. commercial aircraft manufacturer.

[citation needed] Critics also purport the existence of "unseen" costs created by the Export–Import Bank's subsidies, including artificially raising the price of new airplanes and potentially adding $2 billion to the deficit over the next decade.

[60] Forbes contributor Doug Bandow wrote in 2014, "The agency piously claims not to provide subsidies since it charges fees and interest, but it exists only to offer business a better credit deal than is available in the marketplace.

[62][63][64][65][66][67] Best practice in finance and economics, as well as in banking, is to adjust the cost of capital or discount rate to reflect risk,[68] or, equivalently, to use a fair-value estimate.

"[69] In February 2009, the EXIM settled a seven-year-long legal proceeding brought by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace together with the cities of Boulder, Arcata and Oakland.

[72][73][74] However, EXIM fossil fuel financing and associated greenhouse gas emissions grew swiftly after the settlement agreement, coinciding with Chairman Hochberg's tenure.

Environmental groups say that in reversing the decision the agency's Chairman, Fred Hochberg and Board of Directors "caved in" to political pressure from Wisconsin politicians.

[82][83][84][85][86] In 2011, several environmental groups protested at Export–Import Bank headquarters, unsuccessfully urging Chairman Hochberg and Board of Directors to reject $805 million in financing for the 4,800 megawatt Kusile coal-fired power plant in South Africa,[87] which environmental groups say is the largest carbon emitting project in the agency's history, which will not alleviate poverty but will emit excessive local air pollution, which health experts say causes damage the respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems and deaths resulting from heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

[95] In 2019 Friends of the Earth (US) criticized EXIM President Kimberly A Reed for supporting the liquid natural gas (LNG) industry despite the lifecycle climate impacts of the fossil fuel, citing the U.S. government's Fourth National Climate Assessment finding that more frequent and extreme weather events are severely damaging the environment and the economy, while increasing harm to human health and loss of life.

[38] Environmental groups criticize the approval as directly violating President Biden's commitments to end overseas fossil fuel financing, including at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference.