The Export-Import Bank recently approved a $5 billion loan to French energy company TotalEnergy to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline in Mozambique. An American organization is funding America’s economic competition, contradicting its mission and President Donald Trump’s plans to support U.S.-based businesses.
Ex-Im was established in 1934 via an executive order by Franklin D. Roosevelt as an independent executive agency with the purported goal of supporting American jobs by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy just wrapped up a trip to Asia to secure contracts for Alaska’s LNG industry and the construction of its new pipeline. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is authorizing LNG expansion nationwide. At the same time, Ex-Im is funding a direct competitor. Why? How?
Mozambique has a geographic advantage over America for many LNG export markets. Its capital city, Maputo, is 2,800 miles from Mumbai, India. Anchorage is nearly 10,000 miles away. Thus, Alaskan LNG will have much higher transportation costs reaching Indian markets. Mozambique’s LNG is closer to many other foreign countries than to the U.S.
These nations will choose cheaper LNG and put America at a competitive disadvantage.
Creating American Jobs?
The Ex-Im Bank says this loan will “support more than 16,000 American jobs and nearly 70 U.S. suppliers across country.” And that may be the case in the construction of this pipeline. Perhaps they do buy American raw materials, and that would be good for American manufacturing. The construction of the pipeline is not the problem but rather the loss of market share once the pipeline is operational. If short-term and one-time manufacturing orders were the sole consideration, then by this logic we should fund nuclear plant construction in Iran to increase the purchase of American uranium. We should fund the construction of munitions factories in Russia if Russians buy American steel.
President Trump’s pick to head the Ex-Im Bank, John Jovanovic, has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, and this decision was made by the acting president. One can only speculate if the loan would have been greenlit considering Trump’s America First energy agenda, especially in the area of LNG. But this LNG loan is not working in concert with the greater Trump energy agenda.
Thwarting China?
Ex-Im says this investment will help thwart Chinese investment in the project and their dominance in the region, but this sudden attention to the threat of Chinese incursion seems opportunistic. In 2023, Ex-Im made a $950 million “investment” in so-called renewable energy, with China controlling 70 percent of the manufacturing and 90 percent of the raw materials markets for wind and solar. My organization has documented this in several reports. Ex-Im Bank did not seem to worry about the threat of China when it transferred hundreds of millions of tax dollars to the Chinese Communist Party.
Thanks to the generosity of the Ex-Im Bank and our U.S. taxpayer dollars, as soon as Mozambique’s LNG industry is operational, foreign markets will purchase LNG from Mozambique instead of from more expensive America. That will be good, too, for the French company who owns the pipeline. Not so good for America.
Accountability to Americans
Many factions fight for power in Washington, D.C., and most of them are not elected and act with no accountability to the American president let alone the American people. The power of these agencies along with their budgets and grant-making ability should set policy and agendas always aligned with America’s interests. Right now, much of D.C. seems to be aligned to the Obama administration, or maybe even FDR’s. They are certainly not aligned to the America First plan for which more than 77 million voters cast their ballots.
The common criticism of Elon Musk from angry leftists is he is an “unelected bureaucrat.” Every sunny Saturday for the past few weeks, thousands of protesters held poorly made signs “Fire Elon” and “No one elected Elon” outside of Tesla dealerships. Musk’s crime is, of course, exposing the waste, fraud, and abuse of unelected bureaucrats — like those at the Ex-Im Bank who are driven by their agenda, not America’s interests.
It is time Trump put such wasteful bureaucrats on the same trajectory as the Department of Education. We will all be better off when they are shuttered for good.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF.
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