This week the U.S. Senate may vote on reauthorizing and expanding the Export-Import Bank, a government agency that subsidizes U.S. exports. So I’m recalling some of their greatest hits.
By 1996 the U.S. government knew that the China National Nuclear Corporation and its subsidiary the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation) had provided nuclear technologies and nuclear weapons materials to Pakistan and Iran, including the sale of 5,000 ring-magnets (which can be used to weaponize uranium) to Pakistan that violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Nevertheless, later that year, the Export-Import Bank of the United States approved a $383 million-dollar direct loan of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the CNNC so that the known nuclear proliferator could buy nuclear-power equipment made in the U.S. by Westinghouse and Bechtel.
A Congressional Research Service report a few years later recounted the backstory:
But it wasn’t just the Clinton Administration. In February 2005, the Bush Ex-Im approved a $5 billion loan deal to CNNC, which was to be the largest subsidy Ex-Im had ever given out. Again, the U.S. exporter benefitting from the deal was Westinghouse, which, at the time, was owned by the British government. As far as I can tell, this Ex-Im subsidy was never actually issued, but it couldn’t have helped Bush’s credibility when he was telling Russia not to give nuclear materials to Iran.
Past issues:
