For John Jovanovic, the moment that would culminate in an Oval Office swearing-in as chairman of the Export-Import Bank did not begin with ceremony. It began the night before, with memory of the foundational moments of childhood and the people who made his journey possible.
“I was overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude I’ve never felt before,” Jovanovic told me at the start of our interview. “I am truly the embodiment of the American dream.”
I am truly the embodiment of the American dream.
John Jovanovic
He greeted me wearing a dark suit, with a smile and a firm handshake. His office, on 811 Vermont Avenue, has the studied calm of a place meant to be inhabited rather than displayed. Personal photographs—his wife, Daphne, and their four children—are arranged with care and symmetry. From a large window, the White House and Lafayette Park come into view. Snow lingers unevenly along the park’s edges, brightening the already white facade of the White House. It is a view Jovanovic concedes may be the best in Washington.
The room where Jovanovic makes decisions is steeped in institutional memory. A large desk anchors the space, bearing the plaque of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce from 1940 to 1954. The desk is historically preserved as it was made especially for Jones, one of the first Chairmen of the bank. Nearby, three books are stacked with deliberate order, all biographies and memoirs of Jones, widely regarded as the second most powerful figure in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II, a New Deal power broker whose imprint still shapes the architecture of American economic policy. The distance between Jones’s era and Jovanovic’s is less a matter of time than of intent.
Under Trump, Jovanovic makes history as the first Serbian-American appointed to lead the U.S. Export-Import Bank—a milestone for a community long underrepresented at the highest levels of government. That history, he insists, begins earlier. His family came legally to the United States after World War II without knowing a word of English.
“My family started over in the US, and very much just embraced everything that was great about America,” Jovanovic recalled. “They worked hard and looked to instill in us all of the values that they held close—religion and our church, morality and treating people fairly, and working hard and giving their all.”
Running alongside those principles was what Jovanovic describes as a distinctly American conviction: “We do the impossible here.”
That same belief shapes how Jovanovic understands President Donald Trump’s presidency and its economic message.
“When you listen to President Trump’s second inaugural address where he spoke about how the impossible is what we do, or when he outlines his vision revitalize America and rebuild its manufacturing and ensure that all of those hard working jobs are back—and that communities feel empowered to help build and shape the future,” Jovanovic said, “That’s an empowering message. That is our mission.”
Over black tea, in his first exclusive sit-down interview since his swearing-in, Jovanovic spoke with The Pavlovic Today about President Trump’s leadership up close, the administration’s trade agenda, and the urgency now defining U.S. economic statecraft.
Jovanovic: The President is trying to solve a massive set of problems, and we need to do our part
On the afternoon of November 12, 2025, John Jovanovic walked through the White House gates for his swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office, accompanied by his wife, Daphne—whom he met on the third day of college—and their four children. The moment echoed a truth Maya Angelou once articulated: I come as one, but I stand as ten thousand. No one enters a room of power alone.
Unlike any previous chairman in the bank’s history, Jovanovic is Serbian-American.
Jovanovic grew up in Chicago, a period he remembers with uncomplicated affection. “I absolutely loved it,” he said. He was raised in a pan-European, immigrant, first- and second-generation American community—diverse in background but unified in belief.
“We all kind of embraced this unifying idea that America was the greatest place in the world, and that every single day we had opportunities which could not be missed,” he said. “Unlike families that had been in America for five, six, seven generations, we didn’t take anything for granted,” he noted. “I think that was probably the overarching sort of principle that stuck with me is that every moment is precious, every opportunity is precious, and I still feel that way today.”
When Jovanovic speaks about the historic role he has assumed under President Trump, there is a nod and a half-smile. “I come here every single day and say, our biggest enemy is the ticking clock,” he said. “Time is our biggest enemy. Every single day we have to come to this building with a sense of urgency,” he added. “There is so much to do.”
EXIM, he said, has been called upon to serve as a frontline economic instrument of the President’s agenda. The task, as he describes it, is straightforward: to help American companies compete—and win—abroad. “These are gargantuan opportunities,” he said. “These are real issues. The President is trying to solve a massive set of problems, and we need to do our part.”
Trump up close
In the Oval Office during the swearing-in ceremony, Jovanovic recalled, President Trump was attentive and engaged. “President Trump has a fantastic memory,” he said. “Every time I’m with him, it is incredible to see the level of detail that he will recount and recollect from years ago.” Trump, he noted, referenced Jovanovic’s work during the first administration and remembered his oldest daughter, Philomena, from her previous visit to the Oval Office.
Jovanovic recalled that the President was encouraged by the role young people are playing in advancing the administration’s agenda.
“President Trump is the most empowering person I’ve ever worked for. He asks a lot of you, but he empowers you to work as hard as you can every day, to use sound judgment, and to advance his agenda with urgency.”
One of the lighter moments of the ceremony came courtesy of Jovanovic’s daughter Gigi, who decided she wanted to join photographs—including, eventually, one with the President himself.
President Trump is the most empowering person I’ve ever worked for.
John Jovanovic
“The President couldn’t have been nicer about it,” Jovanovic said. Gigi, he added, managed to get a photo alone with the President—something not everyone present did. Moments like that, he suggested, are easy to miss from a distance.
“When you see President Trump up close,” Jovanovic said,“he’s warm and gracious, especially with children. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he takes the time to make people feel welcome and appreciated.”
The couple’s four children, whom Daphne had worried might be restless, were, Jovanovic said, “on their best behavior until the very last moment.”
Vice President JD Vance administered the oath. Jovanovic described Vance as both an inspiration and a role model, pointing to what he called the Vice President’s challenging personal and political journey. “He’s always been encouraging of our work,” Jovanovic said. “He’s a great role model across the board.”
Secretaries Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent were among those present, offering congratulations and remarks on Jovanovic’s family. Jovanovic also introduced President Trump to EXIM’s first-ever senior adviser for energy dominance, Jeff Wilson.
“I told President Trump that, thanks to his leadership, the bank now has its first energy-dominance lead,” Jovanovic said, adding that Trump was “very excited” to meet him.
The Bible that traveled from Serbia
The Bible used in the swearing-in ceremony carried a history longer than the Oval Office itself. Daphne held it carefully. It came from Jovanje Monastery, set high in the Serbian Holy Mountain in southern Serbia.
“Generations and generations of my family have done everything they could to help protect and support it,” Jovanovic said. “When I found out there was going to be an opportunity to be in the Oval Office and to do a swearing-in ceremony, I kindly asked, through my friend of many years, His Grace Bishop Irinej Dobrijevic, bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Eastern America, if I could send a letter requesting a Bible on loan,” he said. “And they sent me the most beautiful Bible—absolutely stunningly beautiful.”
For Jovanovic, the gesture carried a weight that was both personal and generational. “If you want to talk about the common thread—about how my family’s journey culminates in this moment—it was probably the most significant part for me,” he said. He framed the moment as the culmination of a spiritual lineage stretching across generations. “The fact that I could have that relic, that memento, with me was very symbolic.”
His attachment to tradition, he said, is owed largely to the women who raised him—his grandmother, his mother, and his aunt. After his parents passed away, it was his aunt who stepped into the role of surrogate mother.
“She jokes that it was a team effort raising me, because I was so difficult,” he said, laughing. “But she has three daughters who were like my older sisters, so that was particularly symbolic.”
The day did not end at the White House. That evening, Jovanovic returned to host the Export-Import Bank’s annual holiday party—and changed its format.
“I wanted a family party,” said Jovanovic. Employees were invited to bring their children and grandchildren. “The holidays are about family. That’s what this is all about—giving people the opportunity to celebrate with their families.”
EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic on America First export strategy
John Jovanovic describes the 21st century as an era shaped by overlapping crises—economic, geopolitical, and technological—that require U.S. economic institutions to act with great force and coherence.
“President Trump’s been very clear that one of the key pieces of his economic agenda is to help bring supply chain security, writ large, to the United States,” noted Jovanovic. The goal, he added, is to ensure supply chains that are “free, fair, and functional.” By doing that, John said EXIM will help provide “everyday Americans and companies large and small, what they need when they need it most.”
At the center of President Trump’s economic agenda is trade—and particularly tariffs—raising questions about how EXIM under Jovanovic’s leadership will support American companies seeking to compete and win abroad.
“President Trump has put forward the most transformational economic agenda in our lifetimes,” Jovanovic said. Asked why he believes that is the case, he pointed to what he described as the President’s “very clear” objectives: revitalizing American manufacturing, putting American workers first, and ensuring that U.S. companies can ‘compete globally. “And those things all fit squarely within the EXIM mandate,” he said.
“When we say we want to bring EXIM back to basics, that’s exactly what we need.” Jovanovic said EXIM’s core mission is helping U.S. companies win abroad in ways that expand exports and translate directly into hard-working, well-paying jobs at home.
President Trump has put forward the most transformational economic agenda in our lifetimes
John Jovanovic
Donald Trump’s political doctrine of America First has expanded beyond domestic policy to encompass a broader export strategy. Jovanovic distills the logic behind what he describes as the America First export strategy into a single principle: winning abroad does not require abandoning American standards.
“We want to give U.S. companies every opportunity to win abroad,” he said. Drawing on his experience in President Trump’s first administration—much of it spent overseas promoting American investment—Jovanovic recalls a question he was often asked in Washington: what, exactly, does it take for American companies to succeed internationally?
Back in Washington, many would often ask whether competing abroad required being the cheapest, cutting corners, or compromising ethics. “Do we have to break the law? Do we have to pollute? Do we have to bribe people?” he recalled. His answer was consistent. “We don’t have to do any of those things,” Jovanovic said. “What we have to do is show up.”
Showing up, in his view, means consistency and follow-through. “We have to be present, and we have to follow through,” Jovanovic said. “We have to remind people of the value of investing in a long-term economic partnership with the United States.”
That lesson, he added, has repeated itself across countries and continents.
“President Trump has revitalized everyone’s desire to partner with America economically” he said. “We are inundated with calls from every corner of the globe wanting to buy American, invest in America, build their economic future with America. I have never seen anything like it in my career.”
Four priorities, no more
EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic speaks about EXIM strategy the way he speaks about time: as something that must be zeroed in.“There are four key strategic priorities we work on every single day here based on President Trump’s economic agenda,” he said. “Anything that doesn’t fit those priorities is by definition, not a priority.”
The first priority is returning EXIM to its core mission: helping American companies win abroad. The second is advancing President Trump’s energy dominance agenda by ensuring that U.S. energy molecules and energy technologies reach every corner of the globe. The third helping supply chains secure and help them be reliable again, for companies large and small, for everyday Americans. The fourth looks ahead, positioning the United States at the center of emerging technologies, including the White House-led AI export plan.
The point, Jovanovic insists, is not breadth but clarity. “We don’t have 37 priorities. We don’t have 12. We don’t have two,” he said. “We have those four.”
Inside the building, he added, the expectation is total alignment. The test is simple: stop anyone in the hallway and ask what EXIM’s priorities are. “They’d be able to tell you those four,” Jovanovic said.
Under his chairmanship, EXIM has already begun to execute on Trump’s agenda. For the first time in its history, the bank partnered with the Department of War to address a critical raw-materials processing gap in the U.S. supply chain through the Make More in America initiative, supporting a project in Pennsylvania.
“This is exactly what we want to be doing—working closely across the interagency to help solve the biggest problems in every way we can,” Jovanovic said. The deal, he noted, was the first transaction authorized under his leadership. “It’s something we’re very proud of, and it’s symbolic of what we hope will come.”
While EXIM places the American worker at the center of its mission, Jovanovic sees the bank’s role extending beyond domestic economics. Through its financing tools, he said, EXIM also advances U.S. foreign-policy objectives—whether by strengthening allied supply chains in Australia or supporting strategic development efforts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.
Asked whether the United States can prevail in the global race for artificial intelligence, EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic did not hesitate. ”I believe the President’s been very clear that the AI export strategy and our desire to win” will assure the US dominance in this emerging field.
Jovanovic: Washington was insulated for too long from everyday Americans
Small and medium-sized businesses account for roughly 95 percent of companies in the United States. At the Export-Import Bank, Jovanovic notes, they make up nearly 90 percent of transactions by volume.
“I feel as though Washington, for far too long, was insulated from how the everyday Americans feel—how they feel about the economy, how they feel about their everyday lives,” he said. President Trump’s intervention, he argues, was to put those concerns “front and center,” reshaping how policy is made and whom it is meant to serve.
The case for small and medium-sized businesses, in Jovanovic’s telling, is not sentimental.
“It’s hard for people who have not spent time either working here, studying here, living here, who haven’t been born here, to understand that nowhere in the world can you drive from New York City to Los Angeles, and all along the way you encounter wealthy, prosperous, stable, thriving communities,” he said. Those communities, he added, are “built on the back of people who own companies that have 50 employees, 100 employees, 150 employees,” businesses that succeed without shortcuts. “They don’t have to do anything that’s against the law to get there. All they have to do is work hard, invest, treat people fairly. That is the American dream.”
Much of EXIM’s work, Jovanovic said, is about making opportunity portable—directing capital to companies that cannot afford the risks of exporting on their own. Large multinationals can absorb uncertainty, but smaller firms cannot. That is where the bank steps in. For Jovanovic, it is not simply economic policy. It is how the American dream is recharged—one export, one company, one community at a time. With the work of those who made his path possible, Jovanovic broke a glass ceiling as the first Serbian-American to lead EXIM. What follows may matter even more.
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