Green: US and Mexico are closer than ever before

Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Wilson Center and welcome to our 10th Annual US-Mexico Border Conference. 

These sessions, focused on enhancing the competitiveness of the US-Mexico border, aim to highlight just how interdependent our two nations truly are. 

The border is not where Mexico and US meet as much as it is a reminder of the deep historic, cultural, familial and economic ties that we have. 

No other border region in the world is as vast or as dynamic as the US-Mexico border. It is the defining point of US-Mexico cooperation, on issues such as migration, trade, security. 

While the southern border of the US is often perceived as the origin of bilateral national crises, the reality, as many of you who live and study the border know, is that the place is a region that is filled with opportunity. Opportunity on both sides of the border, opportunity for entrepreneurs, opportunity for workers, opportunities in so many ways to lift the lives of all of us. 

The border is not a dividing line. It is a crossroads. It unites us, in so many ways. And it reminds us that only by deepening US-Mexico cooperation, can we solve many of the shared challenges that we face.

Challenges like climate extremes, the global migration and refugee crisis, the attraction of new investment to facilitate trade, the promotion of economic growth, combating illicit trade, and succeeding in competition against command and control economies like China and Russia. 

Ambassador Mark A. Green

Look, the flash points are what get attention, we all know that. But the US and Mexico are closer than ever before. Last year, Mexico became the US’s top trading partner with two way trade totaling just shy of $800 billion, surpassing trade with both China and Canada. 

What doesn’t get enough attention is that both economies are deeply intertwined, interconnected, and more importantly, interdependent. 

Mexico is the US first agricultural trading partner and the first and second export market for 28 US states. Mexican trade and investment supports over five million jobs in the US and Mexico is the US’s largest export market for gasoline and other refined products including natural gas. 

For Mexico, the US is key for its economic development. Last year, remittances from the US to Mexico reached a record high of $63 billion, boosting the country’s economic activity.

USMCA, which is about to celebrate its fourth anniversary, has provided for all nations a legal and regulatory framework to promote trade, to strengthen economic collaboration and to build a competitive, sustainable and inclusive North American region. It has secured $1.57 trillion of annual trade between the three countries, strengthening regional supply chains. 

Today’s border conference will cover and analyze many of the issues that will be critical ahead of the 2026 USMCA review, including Chinese investment Mexico, looming USMCA trade disputes, the impact of AI, and much more. 

With presidential elections on both sides of the border this year, the next leaders of the US and Mexico must be ready to reaffirm the necessary conditions, rules, infrastructure, workforce, energy resources and security to strengthen North American integration, to promote job growth, to boost the region’s competitiveness compared to other global trading partners and arrangements. 

I know we all agree. I know we’re all ready to charge on. The Mexico Institute is one of the most important parts of the Wilson Center. We care deeply about US-Mexico relations, and we care deeply about working together to make sure that challenges are turned to opportunities. 

It is now truly my pleasure to introduce Lila Abed, acting sirector of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. I think we can all agree that few people can rival her when it comes to passion, but it’s an opportunity for all of us to work with her to build and reach the potential of what US-Mexico relations can be. And she will provide us with some remarks on today’s conference. Lila Abed, it’s all yours.

Editor’s Note: The above commentary was provided by Ambassador Mark A. Green, president, director and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, DC. The Wilson Center houses the Mexico Institute. Green made the above remarks at the beginning of the Mexico Institute’s 10th Annual Building a Competitive US-Mexico Border Conference. Green can be reached via email at: Building a Competitive US-Mexico Border Conference.

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