Ex-Im Bank gets to hide bad loans to compete with China
S. 753 — Strengthening Exports Against China Act · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Feb 26, 2025 · Hearing held
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What it does
This bill amends the Export-Import Bank Act to exclude certain U.S. export financings from the bank's default-rate calculation when determining whether it has hit its lending cap. Specifically, it excludes defaults on loans that help U.S. companies replace or compete with products from Chinese entities on the Commerce Department's Entity List or Treasury's sanctions list, or loans made under a China-focused export program. The effect is to allow the Ex-Im Bank to lend more total money by not counting these particular defaults against its statutory cap.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is not a direct subsidy or new program but a technical accounting change that allows the Ex-Im Bank to lend more by excluding certain defaults from its cap calculation. This is a form of regulatory relief for export finance, achieved through a definitional carve-out rather than an appropriation.
What the text implies
- By excluding defaults from the rate calculation, the bill obscures the true performance of Ex-Im loans to China-competing entities, potentially allowing the bank to continue lending to riskier borrowers without triggering statutory caps.
- The exclusion applies only to defaults on loans that meet the China-competition criteria, creating a two-tier risk accounting system where some defaults are invisible to the cap but others are not—this may incentivize the bank to classify loans favorably.
- Taxpayers remain the ultimate backstop for Ex-Im Bank losses; excluding defaults from the cap does not eliminate the risk, only the visibility of it in the bank's statutory metrics.
- The bill references the 'Program on China and Transformational Exports' under section 2(l) of the Ex-Im Bank Act, but that program's scope and funding are not defined in this bill—the exclusion's reach depends on how that program is administered.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands export financing for U.S. companies competing with China, which may support American jobs and competitiveness. However, it does so by excluding defaults from the bank's risk metrics, potentially masking deteriorating loan performance and shifting default risk onto taxpayers who back the Ex-Im Bank. The public benefit (export support) and public cost (hidden risk) are both concrete.
Who stands to gain
- U.S. exporters competing with Chinese entities
- Export-Import Bank (expanded lending capacity)
- Companies on the Entity List or sanctions list (indirectly, by reducing competition from U.S. firms)
Named in the bill
Export-Import Bank, Bureau of Industry and Security (Commerce Department), Office of Foreign Assets Control (Treasury Department), Entity List (15 CFR 744, Supplement No. 4), Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, Program on China and Transformational Exports
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Feb 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Feb 26, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
- Mar 26, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Hearings held”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $255,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 28 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Catherine Cortez Masto, the sponsor, reported $298,634 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Service Employees International Union Ctw-clc — $255,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 9, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,283 characters) on Aug 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 9, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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