Export-Import Bank Chairman John Jovanovic, known among friends as “Captain America,” opened the bank’s annual conference Wednesday morning at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., with a call to action.
Under the Trump administration and Jovanovic’s leadership, EXIM is accelerating its posture. The message: the United States intends to compete — and win — in the industries that will define the next global economic order.
“The fundamental challenge of our generation—and its greatest opportunity—is not simply to revitalize the American economy, but to re-industrialize it,” said Jovanovic.
The theme of this year’s gathering, “Buy American, Build the Future,” is a strategic directive. At its core is a recalibration of U.S. economic policy: anchoring production at home while projecting commercial strength abroad.
For decades, EXIM has functioned as a consequential instrument of national strategy — a financing arm deployed to ensure that American companies can compete globally when it matters most.
“That same urgency is back,” Jovanovic said. “The factories that went quiet, the supply chains that got hollowed out, the critical materials we ceded to foreign competitors—rebuilding all of that is the work of this era as we move toward the Golden Age.”
EXIM is financing mines, processing facilities, energy infrastructure and manufacturing deals intended to restore American industrial strength and support jobs for the next generation. At the same time, the bank is positioning U.S. workers and exporters to compete more aggressively in global markets.
Success means revitalizing and re-industrializing America and the way it creates the well paying jobs across this country, not just in our major cities, but in communities everywhere.
EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic
An underlying thesis is that economic security is inseparable from national security — and that supply chains, industrial capacity and export financing have become frontline tools of geopolitical competition.
Jovanovic cast the bank’s role in explicitly strategic terms, framing EXIM as both financier and force multiplier for American industry and its allies.
“Success means revitalizing and reindustrializing America and the way it creates the well paying jobs across this country, not just in our major cities, but in communities everywhere,” said Jovanovic.
“It means ensuring that American businesses and workers have access to the resources they need when they need the most. It means being grounded in the real economy, infrastructure, supply chains, because strengthening these foundations makes the United States and our allies more secure, more resilient and more prosperous,” added EXIM Chairman.
On EXIM’s 92nd anniversary, Jovanovic joined President Trump to announce a nearly $12 billion initiative, Project Vault, aimed at creating a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve to protect manufacturers and exporters from supply chain disruptions and shortages of essential materials.
“It is a uniquely American solution that brings together private capital alongside government financing to secure supply chains, driven entirely by market demand and the needs of manufacturers, large and small, across the country—and without taxpayers picking up the tab,” said Jovanovic.
Since new government accounting rules were introduced, EXIM has returned nearly $10 billion to the U.S. Treasury while maintaining a default rate below that of the average private-sector lender.”And we are just getting started,” said Jovanovic.
The bank is positioning itself as one of America’s frontline economic tools, organized around four core priorities: expanding market access for American exporters; ensuring U.S. energy molecules and technologies reach global markets; strengthening supply chain security; and securing leadership in the industries that will define the future and support well-paying jobs.
“America First does not mean America alone,” noted EXIM Chairman Jovanovic.
Over the next two days, the conference will convene senior Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Agriculture Undersecretary Luke Lindberg and Assistant Secretary of State Caleb Orr.
Industry leaders including Toby Rice, Bob Diamond, Dwight Anderson, Rita Adiani and Steve Hendel are also expected to participate, alongside members of Congress such as Sens. Bill Hagerty, Dave McCormick and Jim Banks, and Reps. Bruce Westerman, Warren Davidson, Pete Stauber and French Hill.
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