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Washington, D.C. - Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank (EXIM Bank), addressed Foreign Policy’s Competiveness Forum in Washington D.C. today on the subject of global competition.

Below are his comments as prepared.

Good afternoon, and thank you all for staying to the very end. I want to thank David and the Foreign Policy team for putting this together. David and I first discussed this event several months ago. We talked about how central competitiveness is to our economy, our security, and to America’s standing in the world.

Of course, competitiveness covers a range of issues-everything from education and infrastructure to tax policy and trade authority. It’s about what we decide to do-and what we decide not to do-as a country.

And I’d like to focus on one critical element of our competitiveness that is very much at risk today: the global race for export success.

The agency I head-the EXIM Bank-is the official export credit agency of the United States. Let me start by telling you just a little bit about what we do.

Just like fire or theft insurance, companies frequently need what’s called export credit or accounts receivable insurance to protect their overseas sales. They need working capital to stay competitive and keep innovating. Sometimes, their overseas buyers need loans or guarantees in order to buy American goods and services. And in a lot of cases-particularly when a company is small, or if it wants to sell to the developing world-the private sector isn’t able to offer financing.

We work with companies to equip them with financing they need to go toe-to-toe with foreign rivals. The end result? More good-paying jobs end up in cities and towns here in America, rather than thousands of miles away.

Last year, we supported 164,000 U.S. jobs. At the same time, due to fees and interest paid to us, we generated $675 million for the taxpayers above and beyond all of our costs.

As everyone here today knows, we’ve got the most robust private sector in the world. But just because they can handle financing for most U.S. exports doesn’t mean that they can handle it all. The private sector is Plan A for most exporters-we’re Plan B. Plan C, of course, is China… It’s as simple as ABC.

I was at the Strategic & Economic Dialogue on Tuesday, and met with some of my Chinese counterparts. Make no mistake: they are going full speed ahead. It’s against that backdrop that we find ourselves on the brink of a lapse in EXIM’s authorization. In fact, our Charter is set to expire five days from today. And if you’re wondering what China thinks about that, you don’t have to wonder. A senior official from China’s Export-Import Bank told reporters this week that EXIM going away would be, quote, “a good thing” for China.

Now, in our 81-year history, we’ve been reauthorized 16 times with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Two weeks ago, 67 senators expressed support for our reauthorization. In the House, a strong majority of 250 members have put their names onto bills reauthorizing EXIM.

In this day and age, that sort of consensus doesn’t happen very often. You might think that would be enough to keep a vital tool that serves job growth at no cost up and running.

Think again.

Because the reality is that Congress will go into recess today with no vote on EXIM. After 16 reauthorizations, 81 years without controversy, the support of the last 13 U.S. presidents-Republicans and Democrats-and an admirable record of service to the American people, it’s hard to believe EXIM is going to lapse. But we are.

For the last few months, I’ve been asked over and over again: what’s going to happen on July 1st if you aren’t reauthorized? But frankly, I don’t think that’s the right question to be asking. Because the damage caused by this debate has already cost real Americans their jobs, and harmed long-term U.S. global leadership.

And the consequences won’t be limited to the immediate future. They’ll be felt for a long time to come. General Electric is one of the largest employers in America. They do a lot of exporting without EXIM support-but they count on us to handle the deals that private financiers can’t.

A few weeks ago, we learned that GE is at risk for losing out on a major locomotive project in Angola. This is a $350 million project that could very well have led to even more infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa for years to come.

According to GE, the deal was expected to generate 1,800 U.S. jobs across 12 states. But because of the uncertainty surrounding EXIM, the deal is at risk-and China is stepping in with state-sponsored financing for their state-owned locomotive manufacturer. That’s no surprise-I learned last year that China has a lending volume that tops $10 billion in Angola.

That’s 1,800 American families that won’t be able to count on a dependable paycheck… 1,800 jobs that should be going to folks in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Illinois that instead could very well end up in China. And that’s to say nothing of the maintenance, repair, and parts manufacturing jobs that come from follow-on sales for years and years to come-we don’t even count those.

They all may already be lost. All because Congress won’t move to get this done-all because of a vocal minority here in Washington has put ideology ahead of American workers.

Last week, GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, reiterated that he and other business leaders will be forced to consider moving jobs overseas if EXIM goes away. Haven’t we offshored enough manufacturing jobs in the last few decades?

These CEOs don’t want to move jobs out of America. But as you heard earlier today from Nancy McLernon, companies don’t build in America if they can’t export from America. And tools like EXIM are one major factor they consider when deciding where to do their manufacturing. And if they can’t rely on American export financing, they can head just about anywhere else on the planet-because every industrialized country has a version of EXIM. But we’re the only country even thinking about disarming in this way.

As for the debate over EXIM, Immelt said the same thing I’ve been hearing from entrepreneurs across the country-from the smallest family business to our largest employers. He said, very simply: “It makes us look small… it makes us look like we are not a power.”

Of course, even though GE families are already being hurt by this, most of the pain will be felt by small businesses. On Monday, I went to Delaware to meet with representatives from a small, family-owned company called Acrow. They manufacture modular steel bridge kits-a core product for developing countries that want to build a reliable infrastructure.

I saw where their bridges get galvanized-it’s basically a giant zinc bath. This technology was developed by the U.S. Army in WWII. The bridge kits helped our troops advance more quickly as the Germans blew up bridges in their retreat. It is truly Yankee technology.

EXIM is guaranteeing a $73 million commercial loan that will empower Acrow to sell 144 bridges to Zambia, where those bridges will help lay the foundation for durable economic growth.

Farmers in Zambia sometimes have to wait 10 hours to cross a river. During that time, frequently 80 percent of their crops rot as they bake in the sun, waiting to get to market. With a modular bridge, it takes two minutes to cross-and 100 percent of the farmer’s crops make it to that market.

This project will support 200 good-paying jobs at Acrow’s manufac