Schumer, Gillibrand question potential closure of trade office in NYC

WASHINGTON — New York’s two U.S. senators are urging the Trump Administration to scrap thought of closing a regional export-related finance center in New York City, citing potential negative impacts to businesses across 10 states.

In separate letters, both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand describe the Export-Import Bank's regional office as a key to the success of local mid-sized and small businesses.

"New York’s small business owners are being crushed under the weight of the Trump Tariff Tax and rising costs from the war in Iran, and they need assistance now more than ever," Gillibrand explained in a statement.

The Export-Import Bank provides loans and other financial assistance to help boost U.S. companies’ exports. Over the years, it has insured shipments, guaranteed credit and disbursed loans in the amount of $2.9 billion to more than 270 New York businesses, Gillibrand said.

That includes hundreds of millions of dollars of support since 2014 for 44 exporters in the four congressional districts that cover Long Island, according to the EXIM web site.

"Long Island’s economic backbone is comprised of exactly the type of small and medium sized businesses that are served by the center," Kyle Strober, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, said. "Closing it would add one more challenge for the region’s entrepreneurs competing in an economy that is already filled with enough obstacles, barriers and unknowns."

Stacey Sikes, the Long Island Association's acting president and CEO, added, "At a time when we should be strengthening American exports, eliminating this critical resource ... would make it harder for our region's small and medium-sized companies to compete on a level playing field."

Gillibrand’s concerns about the bank abandoning the "central location along the Northeast Corridor" that is also in "the global hub of trade and finance" are outlined in a letter dated Tuesday to EXIM president and chairman John Jovanovic.

Her letter echoes questions and issues in a joint letter earlier this month to Jovanovic from Schumer and the top democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

There was no immediate response from EXIM officials to a request for comment on the letters or on the status of any planned closure.

Schumer and Warren’s July 1 letter noted that EXIM officials have acknowledged they have not modeled the costs for regional directors and others to support bank activities in the 10 affected states if the New York City staff were moved to the Washington, D.C. office.

But their letter, like Gillibrand's, questions whether the potential closure is more tied to labor disputes than any real savings. They point to clashes during Trump's first term involving the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2211 that represents some bank workers, including employees in the New York regional office.