Trade News: The United States and Mexico’s $1 Billion per Day Relationship

Trading Across the Border – The United States and Mexico’s $1 Billion per Day Relationship. Last year, trade between the United States and Mexico amounted to nearly $400 billion. With 85% of that trade crossing the border each day by truck, the U.S.-Mexico border region plays a vital role in the U.S. economy. Two-way trade between the United States and Mexico amounts to more than $1 billion a day. To put the scope and depth of our relationship in perspective, consider that last year U.S. exports to Mexico exceeded our exports to Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. Remarkably, even our imports from Mexico support U.S. jobs—64% of the content of the Mexican goods we import include U.S. inputs. The continued growth of this relationship is vital to the America’s economic recovery.

John Bryson is the new U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Before assuming his position as commerce secretary, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison and Edison Mission Group.  He was a director of The Boeing Company, The Walt Disney Company and Coda Automotive, Inc. and was a senior advisor to KKR.  He was also chairman of the board of BrightSource Energy, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), and the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) Board of Overseers.  He also served as co-chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIP). Mr. Bryson was a trustee of the California Institute of Technology and a director of The California Endowment and the W. M. Keck Foundation.  He served on the Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank Americas.  He also previously served on a number of educational and environmental boards.

The American Jobs Act: New Project Rebuild and Durable Goods. This new Project Rebuild will put people back to work rehabilitating homes, business, and communities. The President is willing to invest $15 billion into this national effort to spur economic growth. Countless buildings across the United States have been empty and rundown for too long. Project Rebuild will allow for them to be reconstructed from scratch.

From International Trade: Trade Deficit and the Dollar. Congress, as part of its oversight of economic policy, has a continuing interest in the trade deficit and its potential consequences for the national economy. A persistently large U.S. trade deficit raises concerns among the public and in Congress about the trade deficit’s effect on economic growth, as well as the associated capital inflow on domestic credit conditions. There are also concerns about the burden of repaying the foreign debt that finances the trade deficit.

Census Bureau Reports State and Local Governments Revenue Declines 22 Percent in 2009. In 2009, state and local governments brought in nearly $2.1 trillion, a 22.1 percent ($587.5 billion) decrease from 2008, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Most tax revenue categories saw declines except property tax, which saw a 3.7 percent increase to $424.0 billion.