President Donald Trump gave the Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm) a huge shot in the arm in 2018 when he nominated Kimberly Reed to take the helm of the then-84-year-old agency. It had been in financial limbo during the previous three years.
Reed also made history as ExIm’s first female chairman as well as the first West Virginian to head the agency.
But she wasn’t finished.
Because ExIm lacked a quorum since 2015 and a chairman since Trump had taken office, the agency was limited as to what it could do.
It was therefore important to bring it up to speed, given that its foreign counterparts — especially China’s export credit agencies — had been furiously working to dump their own country’s goods and services on the United States.
ExIm is the federal government’s official export credit agency. It operates as a federal corporation and "assists in financing and facilitating U.S. exports of goods and services.”
Reed tells Newsmax that her appointment will not continue into the Biden administration, however.
“By law, ExIm’s chairmanship parallels the presidency,” she says. “A successor needs to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate.”
Reed tells Newsmax that in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, she “focused on what sort of tools ExIm could provide to assure that out U.S. companies and workers — especially small businesses — could get through the global pandemic by providing them critical tools.” Those tools include supply chain financing, working capital programs and export credit insurance.
Above all else, though, Congress tasked ExIm to respond to the growing threat from China.
To meet the challenge, she says, she “recruited a very talented person from the Pentagon named David Trulio, and also a gentleman from the Commerce Department named Bradley McKinney.”
Then they set to work.
Their mission was “to neutralize China and to advance America’s comparative leadership in 10 key sectors, including 5G, biotechnology, biomedical sciences, artificial intelligence.”
She adds that “We were instructed to establish this program … to ensure that we were helping our workers compete on this very uneven playing field.”
During an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt last month, Reed said: “Over the past four years, we’ve seen a huge uptick of export credit agencies in foreign countries trying to bring the jobs and the deals to their workers. And so now we have 115 of them around the world competing to help where needed as a targeted tool of our trade toolbox. And China is front and center on this.”
She added that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich “recognizes that it’s crucial to have ExIm to support America’s ability to compete with the People’s Republic of China.”
Reed tells Newsmax that “Congress has empowered us to match the rate terms and conditions that the Chinese may be offering to encourage purchasers around the world to think about buying ‘Made in the USA.’”
In 2019 an environmental group called Friends of the Earth criticized both ExIm and Reed for supporting the liquid natural gas (LNG) industry, claiming it had an adverse effect on the environment.
In response, Reed says the ExIm’s charter “won’t let us pick winners and losers. We must base every application on the merits of that application.”
As a result, she says, “We supported the largest deal in ExIm’s history during my tenure, which was to support the export of LNG equipment made by a Pennsylvania company called Air Products — a $4.7 billion deal supporting nearly 17 thousand U.S. jobs to export great ‘Made in the USA’ goods and services.”
Reed adds that the equipment was exported to support Mozambique’s own LNG industry, and before the deal was awarded to a U.S. company, everyone believed that it would go to China or Russia.
“So I would say that it is a win for American workers,” she tells Newsmax.
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons applauded Reed’s appointment as chairman when Trump nominated her.
“Kimberly Reed is a sterling choice for the Export-Import Bank, and in nominating her to lead the agency, President Trump is standing with America’s manufacturing workers," he said.
"For too long now, the Ex-Im Bank has been hobbled, unable to ever consider action on large deals, while manufacturers lose out on business and jobs to our overseas competitors," Timmons added.
Before Reed left office, Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser Ambassador Robert O’Brien presented her with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service — DoD’s highest civilian award.
In sum, she says, “We made history over the last 20 months.”
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