|
|
Nikki Haley on Free Trade |
HALEY: China is our number one national security threat. I fought them every single day at the U.N. The first thing we have to do is we have to make sure we stop selling them any land and we take back the land they already purchased. We need to go to our universities and we say, "you either take Chinese money or you take American money but the days of taking both are over." We need to stop all of the technologies that are going to China. Biden approved 70% of them. Trump approved even more than that. We have to tell them we're going to end all normal trade relations with them until they stop murdering Americans with fentanyl. But the biggest thing, [for] China in terms of trade, we will move that trade to where we have friends. We will go and build partnerships, India, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, Israel. We will go and move that trade over.
I visited a workforce training center at Rayat-Bahra University in Mohali. Hundreds of students turned out for a talk I gave, and they had so many questions about South Carolina. But they didn't just know about South Carolina because we have an Indian-American governor. The skill development center at their university is modeled after ICAR in Greenville. Their school has signed an agreement with Clemson University to expand cooperation and allow their students to share in our educational opportunities, and vice-versa.
As governors of states whose economies and workforces depend on exports, we strongly urge Congress to support legislation that provides for the long-term reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) before its charter expires on June 30, 2015. The Ex-Im Bank is a crucial tool that both small and large businesses use to compete fairly in the world market, increase their exports, stimulate job creation, and contribute to the growth of our states` economies.
As the official export credit agency of the United States, the Ex-Im Bank assumes the credit and country risks that private sector lenders are unable or unwilling to accept, and without it, U.S. firms would lose many sales to overseas competitors. The Ex-Im Bank allows our companies and workers to compete on a level playing field against international competitors who receive extensive support from their own export credit agencies.
In 2014, the Ex-Im Bank supplied more than $20 billion in financing to support approximately $27 billion in exports. In that same fiscal year, the Ex-Im Bank supported more than 160,000 American jobs. And the overwhelming majority of the Ex-Im Bank`s transactions--nearly 90 percent--assisted small businesses.
The Ex-Im Bank is financially self-sustaining, and operates at no cost to hard-working American taxpayers. In fact, in fiscal year 2014 alone, the Ex-Im Bank returned approximately $675 million in deficit-reducing receipts to the U.S. Treasury.
Last year, Congress reauthorized the Ex-Im Bank [for one year]. It is essential that both chambers act again, this time to pass a long-term, multi-year reauthorization.