Normal U.S. trade with Israel and U.S. grants and loans to that country have an overall beneficial effect on the American economy and help provide jobs for substantial numbers of American workers, according to Rep. Norman Lent (R. NY). Addressing a conference on trade with Israel at Hempstead, N.Y. recently, Lent noted that Israeli imports from the U.S. help employ 160,000 Americans and when employees’ families are included, they contribute to the support of 500,000 Americans.
The conference was organized jointly by the town of Hempstead, the New York State Department of Commerce and the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Lent contended that the assistance received by Israel from the U.S. in the framework of the International Security Assistance Act of 1976 was not a burden but “a bonanza” to the American economy. He noted that the Act requires recipient countries to use the credits to purchase civilian goods in the U.S.
“At one level, American firms export to Israeli firms based on regular commercial contracts. At the other level, the government of the United States, being informed through the banking system of the Israeli private payments for goods imported from this country, credits the Israel government for the same amount,” Lent said. He noted that he had supported the law “and now everyone can see that only half of what Israel is importing from this country is purchased with U.S. grants and loans.”
Lent said that on a per capita basis, Israel is second only to Canada as the largest customer for American products. He also lauded Israel’s record of repayment of American loans. “They always were repaid in full and in time, compared with a 97 percent world-wide performance for the same kind of U.S. loans given to foreign countries. In short,” Lent said, “the foreign aid of the U.S. to countries like Israel, which in its world-wide totality represents only one percent of the U.S. federal budget, has a beneficial effect on the American economy.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
