Pat Toomey slammed his colleagues on the Senate floor Tuesday for moving to bring the long-dormant Export-Import Bank back to full strength.
The Pennsylvania Republican alleged that efforts to reform the bank, which provides financing for foreign purchases of U.S. goods, were deliberately foiled by others in the Senate in favor of simply restoring the government bank back to its unreformed status quo with a full complement of board members nominated by President Trump — though he declined to name names.
Toomey, a long-time free market critic of the bank, spoke ahead of a Senate vote to advance three of Trump’s nominees to fill open seats on the bank’s board: Spencer Bachus III, Judith Pryor and, as its new president, Kimberly Reed. Their confirmation, which is expected later this week, would give the bank a functioning quorum for the first time since 2015. In the meantime, the bank has not been able to approve transactions over $10 million.
Toomey said that efforts to couple their nominations with reforms of the bank’s practices had been undermined. “That deal was blocked by proponents of the Ex-Im Bank here in this body. It is very hard to conclude anything other than those folks never want these reforms to take place,” said Toomey, who has previously clashed with the Trump administration and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on the subject.
The Export-Import Bank provides loans, guarantees, and other financing to encourage foreign purchases of U.S. goods. Business groups have called it an essential tool for reaching foreign markets. Critics, ranging from conservatives like Toomey to liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have called it a form of corporate welfare.
Toomey argued that the bank’s past four years of inactivity showed there was no need for its services and claimed that when it had been in operation it often benefited bad actors. He claimed that the No. 3 recipient of the bank’s loans in 2014 was Air China — “The totally state-owned airline of a country that, last time I checked, was not terribly friendly to us,” he said.
