President Obama’s recent trip to Mexico emphasized the growing economic relationship between our two countries. In this spirit NDN and NPI's 21st Century Border Initiative is proud to release a new report, "Realizing the Strategic National Value of our Trade, Tourism and Ports of Entry with Mexico." This new report will build on two previous papers produced with NPI by ASU's Erik Lee, "Realizing the Value of Crossborder Trade With Mexico" and "Realizing the Full Value of Tourism from Mexico to The United States."
As the report states: “Trade between Mexico and the United States is among one of the great untold success stories of the last four years. Key policies and investment in infrastructure can either help or hinder the enormous economic exchange between our countries. The current negotiations in Congress on comprehensive immigration reform offer a key window of opportunity to expand our ability to facilitate legitimate trade and tourism with Mexico and grow our economy in the process.” Below please find some key statistics featured in the report:
- Six million U.S. jobs depend on our trade with Mexico. Trade relationship is critically important to our economic activity. Bilateral trade is estimated to have reached $535.9 billion in 2012, nearly double the amount of trade since the President took office.
- Mexico is on the rise, economic growth integral to Americas Economy. Mexico has a $1.76 trillion dollar economy, the twelfth largest in the world (measured by GDP purchasing power parity)
- Investment in Infrastructure is Key. Twenty-three states have Mexico as their number one or number two trading partner, multiplying jobs in both countries. Forty-seven U.S.-Mexico land ports of entry facilitate several hundreds of billions dollars in U.S.-Mexico trade every year
NDN President Simon Rosenberg, noted:
"Our report shines a light on one of the most important economic stories of the last decade, one more American policy makers need to pay attention to - the rise of the Mexican economy, and the exploding trade relationship between Mexico and the United States. Our report finds that trade between the US and Mexico was a staggering $536b last year up from $300b just 4 years ago. These extraordinary results, validating the hemispheric ambition of NAFTA, has turned the US-Mexican economic relationship into one of the largest, and most important, in the world today."
Erik Lee, associate Director at Arizona State University’s North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) and author of the report:
"U.S.-Mexico bilateral trade hit $535.9 billion in 2012 and is an economic force that all of us need to appreciate and understand better. President Obama’s extensive references to this enormous economic relationship last week essentially confirmed what we have known for years: the U.S.-Mexico relationship is essentially a commercial relationship, rather a security-based relationship.. We have a window of opportunity to increase this economic bonanza that includes key legislation (including immigration reform), new trade agreements and important pending infrastructure investments to facilitate trade and tourism. If we can get this done, we can set the stage for tremendous future shared prosperity."
For background on the event be sure to read Simon’s recent Huffington Post Op-ed, “The Border is Safer, Our Immigration System is Better;” Kristian's recent NBC Latino Op-Ed "Want to make the border safer? Pass common sense gun violence legislation;" see our round-up of our most important work on these issues; read some of our key reports, "Realizing the Value of Crossborder Trade With Mexico" and "Realizing the Full Value of Tourism from Mexico to The United States." Also, stay in touch with us via our website 21border.com.
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