WASHINGTON, D.C.— “We compete with Ex-Im,” Carlos Garcia told me at the Export-Import Bank Annual Conference. “We basically do the same exact thing.”

Garcia is a vice president at Euler Hermes, a german-owned financial company that finances exports. Euler Hermes, in Germany, is underwritten by the German government—it is their version of Ex-Im. But in the rest of the world, Euler Hermes is just a regular financial services company, a subsidiary of Allianz, the financial services giant.