Carol Greenberg
Conservative Outlooks
4/19/2011
…the US Export-Import Bank is also “committed” with Cartagena and Colombia because they have agreed to loan Reficar $2.84 billion dollars:
“Colombia is one of the nine countries in the world that Ex-Im Bank has identified as having the greatest potential for U.S. exporters and their workers,” said Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of the Bank. “Just last February and December the Bank approved nearly $880 million in export financing to help finance the sale of goods and services from various U.S. exporters to Ecopetrol S.A., Colombia’s national oil company. The export sales to Ecopetrol alone support an estimated 6,700 American jobs.”
Hochberg claims this transactions will sustain or create 15,000 American jobs over 4 years.
The US Export-Import Bank was established in 1934 by FDR under an Executive Order. It’s mission it to help and create jobs for companies who are at credit risk and cannot get financing elsewhere. The bank is chartered as a government corporation by Congress.
The bank came under fire back in 2007 when it loaned “non-existent” Mexican companies $243 million for “non-existent” equipment and the loan actually financed drug traffic and cartels. (The article is 4 years old and takes a while to load, but it does eventually come up).
Ex-Im Bank recently loaned Brazilian oil giant Petrobras $2 billion…
Read the entire article at Conservative Outlooks. CNSNews has a related article, U.S. Gov’t Agency Plans $2.84 Billion Loan for Oil Refinery–in Colombia.
