Mexico Shifts Trade Railway from Texas to New Mexico over Abbott’s Enhanced Border Checks

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Mexican officials said they will move plans for a cross-border trade railway worth billions of dollars from Texas to New Mexico after Texas Governor Greg Abbott began enforcing “enhanced” safety inspections of commercial trucks crossing the border last month.

Abbott directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to carry out the enhanced inspections beginning on April 6 for ten days over concern about “cartels that smuggle illicit contraband and people across our southern border.” The governor suggested there will be an increase in smuggling when Title 42 ends.

In response, Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier said the T-MEC Corridor, which will connect the port of Mazatlán to the Canadian city of Winnipeg, will run along the far edge of West Texas up through Santa Teresa, N.M. rather than through Texas, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“We’re now not going to use Texas,” Clouthier said at a conference last week in Mexico City, according to the report. “We can’t leave all the eggs in one basket and be hostages to someone who wants to use trade as a political tool.”

Mexico is Texas’s number one trading partner: $39.5 billion in goods were trucked across the Texas-Mexico border in February in both directions, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Many, including White House officials, called Abbott’s enhanced inspections a “political stunt.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a statement last month while the enhanced inspections were taking place saying, “Governor Abbott’s unnecessary and redundant inspections of trucks transiting ports of entry between Texas and Mexico are causing significant disruptions to the food and automobile supply chains, delaying manufacturing, impacting jobs, and raising prices for families in Texas and across the country.”

Psaki was later asked if she was blaming Abbott for inflation.

“Well I think we’re trying to state the facts of what is another political stunt that we’re seeing happen and the impact of it,” Psaki replied. “What we’re seeing is right now, factually, there’s over $1 million in trade crossing over the U.S.-Mexico border every minute. These actions are impacting people’s jobs and the livelihoods of hardworking families in Texas and across the country.”

She went on to say at the time that the “unnecessary inspections” were causing “significant delays, which are resulting in a drop in commercial traffic of up to 60 to 70 percent in some ports.”

The delays at the border, which saw some groups rerouting trucks through a crossing in New Mexico, cost the Texas economy $4.2 billion, according to one estimate cited by the Dallas Morning News. Some truckers told the paper they waited three days to cross the border.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the governor’s order “despicable.”

Abbott later ended the enhanced inspections after the governors of Mexican states that border Texas offered border security plans, most of which were already in progress.

While Texas DPS did not report finding any undocumented migrants or illicit drugs during the inspections, a number of safety violations were found, according to the report.

The governor has said he will continue the enhanced inspections if he feels border security is not adequate.

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