There are two more Export-Import Bank nominees that the Senate will consider in the coming months. | Paul J. Richards/Getty Images Finance & Tax Senate revives beleaguered export bank after push by Trump

The Senate on Wednesday agreed to replenish the board of the hobbled Export-Import Bank with three Trump appointees, after Republican opponents spent years blocking nominees to lead the trade-finance agency.

The bank, which has provided billions of dollars in loan guarantees to foreign buyers of U.S. exports, will now be able to return to full operation for the first time since 2015, when its board lost a quorum necessary to approve transactions larger than $10 million.


The Senate in bipartisan votes confirmed the appointments of Kimberly Reed to serve as the bank's president and former Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) and Judith Pryor to serve on its board. They got votes after a long impasse thanks to a new push by President Donald Trump's administration to revitalize the bank and a Senate rule change that allows for expedited consideration of agency nominees.

Manufacturers applauded the move, which will likely benefit giants such as Boeing and Caterpillar because the agency will once again have the ability to approve large financing deals.

But conservatives, who had succeeded in holding up the nominees and briefly forcing the agency's authorization to lapse, warned that the development would allow the bank to return to what they call "crony capitalism" that puts taxpayer dollars at risk.

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"Boeing and all the people who used to get a subsidy worked it harder than the people who wanted to save the taxpayers money," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who led efforts to sideline the bank when he was Banking chairman in 2015 and 2016.

The vote represented a dramatic turnaround for the agency, which is little known outside of Washington but has taken on larger political significance thanks to a fierce fight between free-market conservatives and the business lobby.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has long pushed for the nominees to be confirmed, attributed the delay to a number of senators that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell let "run over him." Most Senate Republicans supported the nominees Wednesday.

"It's cost good manufacturing jobs because a few people have an ideological mission here," said Brown, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee.

The Trump administration this year has become a vocal advocate for the agency, after the president first attempted to appoint former Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) — one of the bank's most outspoken critics — to lead it in 2017. A bipartisan group of senators blocked his confirmation.

White House officials, including Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, have recently described the bank as an important weapon in the U.S. trade arsenal against countries such as China that have their own export financing agencies.

But Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a key figure responsible for holding up the nominees, rejected the idea on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Toomey cited Ex-Im financing that benefited state-owned entities abroad, including in China, and complained that the Trump administration was not seeking "mutual disarmament" of export financing agencies as it pursues trade talks.

"This whole argument that if some other country is engaged in this behavior, therefore we have to — that's a really weak argument," Toomey said.

There are two more Export-Import Bank nominees that the Senate will consider in the coming months. The Senate Banking Committee has already approved the Ex-Im board nomination of Claudia Slacik, and it will need to take up the appointment of Paul Shmotolokha, whom the president nominated last month.

The next fight over the bank is already brewing because lawmakers will need to pass legislation to maintain its operations when its authorization lapses in September.

Trump administration officials are discussing proposals for overhauling the agency as talks in Congress ramp up.

Though a reauthorization bill is unlikely to face major resistance in the Democratic-led House, where there is also bipartisan support for the agency, Toomey and other Senate Republicans are likely to demand changes to the bank's operations.

"You can't just have a straight reauthorization and have any shot of it getting through the Senate," Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said.