Review Of Gaos Report On The Us Department Of Agricultures Targeted Export Assistance Program PDF Download

GAO discussed the status of several programs administered by the Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). GAO found that: (1) FAS has drafted proposed regulations for the Targeted Export Assistance (TEA) program; (2) FAS still does not have an adequate system of internal controls to effectively manage the TEA program; (3) FAS exercises minimal oversight of program participants; (4) FAS guidance to program participants on conducting evaluation remains unclear and is not consistently applied; (5) FAS has drafted proposed regulations for the Export Enhancement Program (EEP); (6) FAS does not centrally track new program initiatives until a commodity division forwards them for higher-level review; (7) FAS does not verify all categories of information needed to prove exporter eligibility or verify sales contract information; (8) EEP has helped to increase U.S. agricultural exports, particularly wheat, to many countries; (9) EEP is an important trade policy tool; (10) the Export Credit Guarantee Program's (GSM) regulations may not be adequate to prevent some questionable transactions in financing guaranteed loans; (11) the U.S.-based financial institutions holding GSM loan guarantees are owned by government banks of the countries purchasing the commodities; (12) about $3 billion in GSM loans have gone into defau