This evening, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will meet with the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs José Antonio Meade.
This meeting has been months in the making. Texas and Mexico put so much effort into their relationship, and not just because they’re geographically close. Between exports and imports, the amount of money that crosses the Mexico-Texas border is nearly $1 billion a day.
The total traded between the two in 2014 was $336 billion, according to the U.S.-Mexico trade report from the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. [Read a pdf of the report here.]
"That can give you an idea of the amount of trade and why it is so important for both Mexico and the state of Texas," says Dr. Federico Schaffler, the director of the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development at TAMIU. "We have seaports, we have oil, we have gas, we have maquiladoras, we have international trade that crosses here — it’s almost a quarter of all that crosses between Mexico and United States crosses in this border. So everything that amounts to a better quality of life, to creation of new jobs, I think that's very important."
Secretary of State Carlos Cascos points out the cultural ties, too. Secretary Cascos extended Gov. Abbott’s invitation to Mexico’s Secretary of foreign affairs when he traveled to Mexico earlier this year.
"I’m from Mexico, and aside from that there’s a lot of people that live in Texas that share customs with Mexico, a culture with Mexico," Cascos says.
While both sides have their challenges, which lead to political friction at times, it benefits them more to keep dialogue and relationships strong.
