The US economy is big — but 95 percent of global consumers lie beyond our borders. Companies offering niche services or specialty products can often run short of buyers in the US — there are only so many suspension bridges or high-tech medical devices needed in the US at one time, for example — and exports are often the best way to grow a business, including a small business. In recent years, 86 percent of Utah exporters were small businesses. And 20 percent of jobs in our state are generated by manufacturing exports alone.

That is why Congress is playing with fire when it considers shutting down the US Export-Import Bank, our country’s official export credit agency, which helps US exporters close foreign sales. This is especially true for the small businesses that lack the legal, regulatory, and financial muscle found at Fortune 500 corporations.

The Ex-Im Bank plays a fundamental role in ensuring the global competitiveness of U.S. exporters. It provides financing–in the form of loans or loan guarantees–to foreign purchasers of American products, and helps U.S. businesses make foreign sales when private commercial financing is unavailable. Ex-Im also helps to level the playing field for U.S. exporters given that some 60 other nations have export credit agencies supporting their exports. These export credit agencies work aggressively, often hand-in-hand with the government, to support domestic industries.

In the 2013 fiscal year, Ex-Im Bank authorized $27 billion in export credit authorizations which supported over $37 billion in U.S. exports of a wide range of goods, from airplanes and power-generators to software and services. Those exports in turn created or sustained American jobs: 205,000 in 2013 alone and more than 1.2 million over the past five years. Ex-Im is an important component of our trade agenda, and trade is an important component of growing the U.S. economy. According to the Business Roundtable, international trade supports more than 374,000 jobs in Utah alone.

Not only does Ex-Im directly support U.S. jobs, it operates at no cost to U.S taxpayers. It charges fees for its services and follows rigorous accounting and risk management standards. Its loan default rate last year was less than one-quarter of one percent.

Opponents of Ex-Im aren’t correct when they say the Bank mainly supports “big businesses” that don’t need such government assistance. The fact is that 90 percent of Ex-Im transactions last year supported exports by small and medium sized firms.

Southern Utah companies like InnoMark in St. George and Staheli West of Cedar City – both recent World Trade Center honorees – have proven that export business is valuable to enterprises large and small and in all corners of our state. InnoMark now exports its Utah-made organic juices, oils, extracts, and powders to 16 different nations, earning a quarter of its revenues from international sales. And Staheli West has managed to double the overseas sales of its steam injection hay baler every year since 2009.

In Northern Utah, Salt Lake County-based companies such as Cytozyme Laboratories, Inc., have been able to grow their market reach in Thailand, India and Brazil thanks to access to an Ex-Im capital loan. We should be supporting these and other small business job creators, not yanking the rug out from under them by shutting down valuable tools like the Ex-Im Bank.

Unilaterally disarming and disbanding the Ex-Im Bank would put U.S. exports in a precarious position. If we cannot provide export credit assistance to foreign purchasers of U.S. products and services when private lenders aren’t available, those buyers will simply take their business to European or Asian firms. Boeing and Cisco sales would simply be replaced by Airbus and Huawei sales. Because our economic rivals offer far more export credit than Ex-Im does, shutting down the Bank would tilt the playing field steeply away from U.S. businesses. Thus, critics who contend the Bank somehow distorts the private market are exactly wrong – it actually levels the playing field and gives U.S. businesses a fair chance to compete.

Failure to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank will have one result: fewer U.S. exports, fewer U.S. jobs and higher U.S. trade deficits. We urge Congress to renew the Bank before its charter expires at the end of June.