Political Quotes

“This bill develops a comprehensive strategy to coordinate the agencies of our Government in helping U.S. businesses export to Africa. Currently, the U.S. export promotion and financing regime is a patchwork of overlapping, loosely coordinated, and maybe in some cases wasteful efforts that are difficult for U.S. businesses to navigate and too often unresponsive to the real needs of real businesses. This bill creates a special Africa export strategy coordinator to ensure this is no longer the case. He will work with the existing export agencies and make sure they are on the same page. The bill establishes a minimum number of commercial Foreign Service officers to be stationed at U.S. embassies in Africa and the multilateral investment banks. These are the men and women who are contacted by American businesses, wanting to do business. They can navigate them through local government requirements as well as some of the other cultural challenges they might face. The bill formalizes and standardizes the training received by economic and commercial officers. It also incrementally increases the amount of money Ex-Im can loan over the next 10 years and creates a standard of accountability for those loans. Remember, this is only an increase in the lending limit, and these loans actually make money for the U.S. Treasury.…”