“Utterly unaffected” is completely false. See detailed analysis. As for unemployment falling “to a level not seen in half a century”, and “exports soaring”:
Ex-Im came back in late 2019, when unemployment was pretty low (3.6%.) lowest in a half-century, though? That’s more or less accurate, although it’s noteworthy that unemployment was lower in in April 2023 (3.4%), so maybe unemployment level is driven by a lot more factors than whether the Ex-Im bank is in business. (Spoiler: Yes. That’s not a ‘maybe.’) As for the claim that exports soared? No. The abstract of a research paper, written entirely as a study of the effects of the Ex-Im shutdown, reads in part:
“We study the role of export credit agencies — the predominant tool of industrial policy — on firm behavior by using the effective shutdown of the Export–Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) from 2015–2019 as a natural experiment. We show that firms that previously relied on EXIM support experienced a 18% drop in global sales during the shutdown, driven by a reduction in exports. Firms affected by the shutdown were unable to make up for the loss of trade financing, especially if they were financially constrained, and consequently laid off employees and curtailed investment.” [Source]
Full contextual analysis of Section 4.3: Export-Import Bank here.