Cross-border trade with Mexico worth $500 billion a year

More than $1 billion in goods trade crosses the U.S.-Mexico border each day. In 2011 U.S.-Mexico good and service trade reached a major milestone of $500 billion with virtually no recognition. While media coverage and political conversation about the border, of late, has focused almost exclusively on illegal immigration and drug trade, the great success story of commerce between the United States and Mexico is being overshadowed. The economic value of the U.S.-Mexico partnership for many in the U.S. remains “hidden in plain sight.” For example:
• U.S. sales to Mexico are larger than all U.S. exports to China, India, Russia and Brazil, combined, as well as all combined sales to Great Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
• Mexico is the second-largest export market for the U.S. (Canada is first), and the U.S. is the largest global export market for Mexican exports. • Approximately 6 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with Mexico.
• Mexico’s $349 billion in 2011 exports to the world, on average, contained 37 percent U.S. inputs.
• For every dollar Mexico makes from exporting to the U.S., it will in turn spend 50 cents on U.S. products and services.
• Twenty-two U.S. states count Mexico as their No. 1 or No. 2 export market – states as close to the border as Arizona, California and Texas and as far away as from the border as New Hampshire, Michigan and Ohio.   Western Farm Press