Originally published in The Hill
When you think of a global business, you might not think of one whose single location is in Olney, Texas, a rural town located 100 miles west of Fort Worth with three traffic lights and a Dairy Queen. But in fact, our company, Air Tractor, exports products to more than 25 countries around the world. Our global reach has been critical to our successful growth.
Our 260 employees manufacture and sell small airplanes for spraying agriculture crops and fighting forest fires. Since 1994, our sales to customers in other countries have increased from 10 percent to 50 percent. There are more than 100 employees at our company who owe their jobs to exporting—that’s significant in a small town of only 3,000 people.
Exporting helps provide good middle-class jobs that pay well and support families. This is a trend companies across the country are seeing–exporting supported more than 11.3 million U.S. jobs in 2013. Exporting has also been instrumental in our steady growth, and we know that our future growth will continue to be global because 95 percent of consumers in the world live outside the United States.
It started in the 1990s when we were looking for ways to expand our customer base. Our commercial bankers directed us to the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that helps U.S. exporters secure financing for deals that the private sector would have otherwise been unwilling to make without the backing of the Bank. Our first transaction with Ex-Im Bank was in 1995; we sold two firefighting planes to a customer in Spain.
In our experience, the Ex-Im Bank’s support has both directly and indirectly helped us increase our international sales. Our initial sale in Spain gave us exposure to additional customers; we have since sold approximately sixty planes in the Spanish market—none of which required Ex-Im Bank support.
Some people say that businesses like ours could go elsewhere for international credit funding. But there’s just not a free-market alternative. Commercial banks work with us specifically because the Ex-Im Bank works with us. Without the Ex-Im Bank, we could not do business abroad.
Some have claimed that the Ex-Im Bank is easy way out for businesses; but truthfully, it’s the only way. Selling our airplanes abroad is our plan for growing jobs in the future.
The Ex-Im Bank operates at no cost to taxpayers by receiving user fees from companies like ours. In the 20 years we’ve been doing business internationally, we’ve completed more than 200 Medium Term Credit Insurance transactions with the Ex-Im Bank and they have never needed to pay a claim for us. That’s good business for the Ex-Im Bank and good business for Air Tractor.
After repeated threats to shut it down, Congress recently re-authorized the Ex-Im Bank to operate through June 2015. It’s great that the Bank’s charter has been extended, but that’s not enough. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the business of selling goods abroad, and it’s critical that companies like ours are able to operate in a stable business environment. This start-and-stop process jeopardizes deals. The Ex-Im Bank should be authorized to operate long term.
The recent debate about the Ex-Im Bank is all wrong. It shouldn’t be about how to quit supporting exporting businesses—it should be about how to support more of them.
I know that navigating business climates in foreign markets can be scary. The Ex-Im Bank makes it easier. As a country, we need the Ex-Im Bank to help more companies sell abroad and create more jobs at home.
Ickert is the vice president of finance at Air Tractor, Inc., in Olney, Texas.