Dispelling border negativity myths key to economic development

By Alberto Tomas Halpern, Big Bend Sentinel—

EL PASO – Federal and state border representatives at a bi-national conference in El Paso on Friday said that in order for the U.S.-Mexico border region to be economically competitive in a global marketplace, negative myths surrounding the border must first be dispelled.

“We need to enable our state leaders to view the border as an opportunity,” said Far West Texas State Sen. Jose Rodriguez. “It’s an opportunity and not a threat and we must realize that recently implemented border security policies and spending tens of millions of dollars in militarizing the border with the National Guard troops harms us more than it helps us,” the El Paso state senator who also represents Presidio, Jeff Davis, Culberson, Hudspeth counties and most of El Paso County, said to a cheering room of hundreds who packed an El Paso Convention Center.

The Texas-Chihuahua-New Mexico Regional Economic Competitiveness Forum, hosted by El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke and the Border Legislative Conference, and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Aid and Washington, DC think tank, the Wilson Center, brought Mexican and U.S. officials and stakeholders together to build on a framework that will strengthen North American commercial relationships.

Key to that, the lawmakers said, is to promote the U.S.-Mexico border region as a secure, pro-business environment, contrary to how some politicians and media have described the border.

“It is incumbent on all of us to speak up every time that we hear someone inaccurately describing the reality of the border, life on the border, and what is happening on the border,” Rodriguez said.

Congressman O’Rourke, since taking office in 2012, has made it a mission to educate his colleagues in Congress about the importance the border serves to the rest of the country, including states that aren’t on the border.

“When we fail to define the border to the rest of the world, to the folks in Washington, DC or Mexico City, we allow them to define the border for us,” O’Rourke said, adding that policies that flow from ill-advised notions of the border only serve to stymie educational and business opportunities in border communities. “It doesn’t always encourage trade and commerce and the legitimate flow of people and ideas and culture and art between our two countries.”

Stefan Selig, the recently appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Department of Commerce, attended the forum as part of his first official trip to Texas. According to Selig and the Wilson Center, Mexico is the U.S.’ second largest export market, behind Canada, and the U.S.’ third largest bilateral trading partner on the globe. That relationship accounted for more than $550 billion in goods and services traded between the U.S. and Mexico last year, which supported about 6 million U.S. jobs.

“By then end of the next minute, $1 million in goods will be exchanged between our two countries. And by the end of the day today, that figure will be $1.5 billion,” Selig said.

Longtime Texas Lower Valley Congressman Henry Cuellar, who has close ties with Mexican officials, including current president Enrique Peña Nieto, said it is long past due in treating Mexico as an equal when it comes to international trade. He said that recent reforms in Mexico, including opening the country’s nationalized oil and gas industry to foreign investment, will completely transform the north western hemisphere.

“I think if we do this right, working with Mexico, and they do the implementation well, you put Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. (together) and we will now be the new Middle East of the world when it comes to energy,” Cuellar said.

Congressman William “Bill” Owens, who represents a district in New York that shares a border with Canada, underscored that point, noting that the gross domestic product (GDP) of NAFTA countries is larger than the GDPs of the European Union and China.

“The GDP of NAFTA countries is about $19 trillion. The GDP of the EU is $17 trillion. The GDP of China is $8 trillion,” Owens said. “What that tells us, when you combine it with what Mr. Cuellar talked about, is an environment in which if we work at making our relationships more efficient and effective, we can say ahead of the anticipated growth of South East Asia.”

While regional border partners seek to maximize the utility of the borders, each community and constituency has its own agenda. And with so many political and business actors, often times with competing agendas, it can be difficult to agree on and promote policies. But lawmakers at the conference said there is more consensus than disagreement.

“Some people in the business sector and even in the official ranks are at odds with a united plan to go forward as a bi-national region,” Rodriguez told The Big Bend Sentinel and The Presidio International. “The whole purpose here is to say, ‘Yeah, we have competing interests sometimes and don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on some policies,’ but the information we’re imparting today is how important it is for the bi-national communities along the border to work in sync towards promoting our common goals.”

Cuellar said that despite competing interests, what lawmakers and the private sector must do is focus on common points of interest.

O’Rourke, too, said that “for the most part, we’re on the same page in terms of regional competitiveness,” and that part of the solution is helping U.S. and Mexican citizens who don’t live near the border, understand that they have a vested interest in the legitimate flow of goods and people.

“What we have to do is help find the will in others who don’t,” O’Rourke told the International and Sentinel, referring to congressional colleagues. “But once we can connect their primary interest – jobs for their constituents in Michigan or South Carolina – with our interest, a healthy border, then I think we find that common will. It’s very much a work in progress, but one I think we’re making some significant progress on.”

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