President Trump appointee tours area manufacturing facility

PORT MANATEE — President Trump appointee Kimberly Reed recently visited Manatee County, where she took a tour of a manufacturing facility that’s part of a nearly $5 billion loan.

During her Oct. 8 visit, Reed, president and chairwoman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, toured Air Products, which operates a 300,000-square-foot plant in Port Manatee. Earlier this year, the bank, known as EXIM, authorized a $4.7 billion loan to advance a massive integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in northern Mozambique, Africa, which Air Products, based in Allentown, Pa., will support. The transaction, according to a statement, is the largest deal the 86-year history of EXIM, an independent federal agency that provides export credit to support sales of U.S. goods and services to international buyers.

The Port Manatee Air Products facility, with some 300 employees, will work on coil-wound heat exchanges that will be used for the project. At least 30 employees over three years will be dedicated to the project, says an Air Products spokesman. Reed, sworn in to her role in May 2019, met with several Air Products employees during her tour. “It was amazing seeing all the hard work there, and seeing all the work of this transaction get across the finish line,” Reed says, in an interview with the Business Observer the day after the event.

In total, the project will support 68 suppliers and 16,700 U.S. jobs across eight states over the five-year construction period, the release states. Follow-on sales are expected to support thousands of additional jobs across the United States.

“As part of Made in America Week 2020, I was honored to visit Air Products’ Port Manatee facility and see outstanding Florida workers on-site as they manufacture massive ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ EXIM-backed equipment destined for export to Mozambique,” says Reed in the statement. “This project, which represents the employment of thousands of workers across multiple industries and states, will strengthen our U.S. economy and positively transform the sub-Saharan Africa country of Mozambique.”

The Export-Import bank was temporarily closed for four years, and had come under criticism for allegedly steering its loans to giant corporations, such as Boeing. But Reed, in the interview, noted the bank’s focus, under her tenure, has to been to support all-sized export-import businesses in the United States that lead to American jobs. Reed added that in many cases, including the project involving Air Products, private financing isn’t available because of a project’s size complexity and risks. “China and Russia would have filled this need,” if the EXIM loan didn’t, Reed says.  

During her Florida trip Reed also went to Tallahassee, where she presented keynote remarks to The Economic Club of Florida.  

(This story was updated to reflect that Air Products did not directly receive the loan.)