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Challenges & Opportunities

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Posted: October 13th, 2015

By Christopher Wilson

Christopher Wilson is the Deputy Director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he leads the Institute's research and programming on regional economic integration and U.S.-Mexican border affairs.  He recently co-authored The U.S.-Mexico Border Economy in Transition and Competitive Border Communities: Mapping and Developing U.S.-Mexico Transborder Industries.

The U.S.-Mexico economic relationship is large, fast-growing, and unique; three important features that make it deserving of significant attention and cultivation. The border between these two countries constitutes both one of the greatest challenges and greatest opportunities to strengthen the competitiveness of the regional economy.

The first feature is relatively straightforward, although underreported. Mexico is the United States’ second largest export market and third largest overall trading partner. Bilateral commerce adds up to more than a half-trillion dollars per year, and U.S. exports to Mexico are worth more than U.S. exports to all of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) combined. Approximately six million U.S. jobs, and probably even more in Mexico, depend on bilateral trade. The simple magnitude of the U.S.-Mexico economic relationship makes it important.

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