On Tuesday — before the Ex-Im Bank’s authorization expired at midnight — President Obama held a press conference today to try to push for its renewal. The president used to call Ex-Im “corporate welfare,” but now says it is “a critical tool to help U.S. businesses and workers succeed in global markets and grow their exports,” according to the invitation for the presser.

Interestingly, at noon, the president also held a joint press conference with the president of Brazil. Brazil is a fairly large recipient of Ex-Im financing — and a pretty stunning example of its corruption. Heritage’s Diane Katz explained last week:

Marcelo Odebrecht, a Brazilian industrialist of immense wealth and power, was arrested and jailed recently on charges of corruption. He and dozens of other businessmen and politicians are accused of swindling the state-controlled oil company Petrobras—the largest business enterprise (by market capitalization) in the Southern Hemisphere.
American taxpayers have a stake in this scandal: Both the Odebrecht conglomerate and the government-owned Petrobras are subsidized by the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
That such moneyed and allegedly corrupt enterprises are backed by American taxpayers is yet more evidence that Ex-Im is a fount of cronyism, primarily serving the interests of major corporations here and abroad. This is contrary to the rhetoric of bank proponents, who incessantly claim that small businesses are Ex-Im’s “core mission.”

For all the gory details about Ex-Im financing to Petrobas and Odebrecht, read her whole piece here.