Transcripts For CSPAN3 Wilson Center Conference On U.S. Mexico Competitiveness 20240714

Aspects of security. Security at the ports of entry is just as important as security between the ports of entry. And, you know, since then weve seen efforts and i think trade community has responded. Congress has responded. Weve seen bills to add more officers. We need other resources at the border. I think at first the only resource were being drawn from southern ports of entry and our first point was what about the airports . What about the seaport . What about the northern ports . You cant pick just one area and say well thats the only area that will get hurt. So beyond that weve seen may 7th, tomato duties went into effect. Now duties on mexican tomatoes. When tariff threat came up, that would have equalled 25 tariffs, 3 billion in tariffs just on what we eat and that constitutes a food tax. In the meantime we had these issues. Thats a glimpse into what we see at the border but we cant stop and think that we cant move forward because theres a lot of things we can move forward on. I look forward to talk about more of those later. There are cool deals going on at the border. Nonentry inspections. How do we invest in coal facilities to make ourselves better. So i would say that weve had adversity but if we take the right approach the future is still bright. Thank you. Thanks very much. So, youve been working at this for a while, representing mexican businesses up here in washington. Youre now meermt permanently. Congratulations on that. What does it took like from that perspective . Thank you very much. You know, 25 years ago none of us would have imagined that we would have been so successful in making north america more competitive. We definitely failed in communicating the developments to our communities and were paying the price today. We as mexican privatesector thats why were now here on a permanent basis because we have a responsibility to contribute, to inform stakeholders here about the benefits for the u. S. Economy, about having an efficient border with mexico, efficient relation with mexico. You know, the world has changed too much in the past two years. When tpp negotiations started the mexican privatesectors first reaction was defensive. Oh, well theres vietnam, malaysia. Competitors from different sectors. Maybe we shouldnt be there. But very rapidly we realized we are part of the value chain of north america. We share production between countries. Theres no way the u. S. Can engage in that. We joined the tpp. When u. S. Started negotiations, we loved it for a quick succession for mexico. We were on that track and suddenly two years ago things changed. U. S. Withdrew from tpp. Threats from withdrawing from nafta started. Then we engaged in a very typical cal negotiation with usmca. Do no harm was one of the main slogans for that process. I think we succeeded in that negotiation. The negotiation is not perfect but we fully endorsed that process and were all in supporting it. Yesterday the ambassador mentioned the agreement and we are there. Were there because one of the Main Elements that this agreement provides to us is a certainty to do business, a certainty to make north america the most competitive region in the world, at the end of the day to provide better Job Opportunities to our community. So i would just like to finish my first comment saying that theres a big cloud out there and that is, that is the strength. Because it attacks the heart. I believe we should move forward as soon as possible in putting forward usmca. But its very clear for us that our agenda will have a trump point, and youre the expert here on u. S. Politic, im not. But at some point these issues of the terrorist threats has to be addressed because if not we cant reap the full benefits. Thank you very much. So, linda, you, of course, are working for National Association of manufacturers, have a very broad area of attention. But as you look to the connection southward and think about that as part of this whole in north america, you know, what have your perceptions been and maybe diminishing up on his theme, its a big theme not only for kroes itcompanies but for m companies that is dependent on this supply chain and quite subject to having to pay the ultimate cost, really, if those tariffs go up, but its actually taxing their business. Maybe you can talk about that a little bit. Thats exactly right. For those that dont know, the ama is the largest Manufacturing Association in the United States. 90 of our manufacturers are small and medium size businesses so care deeply. We were founded nearly 125 years ago because manufacturers knew the plows and food and everything they were producing back then they need more markets than justin the United States because they were so productive. Fast forward right to 2019 and that is more true today. Theres no closer relationship than what we have with our north american partners, canada but, of course, mexico. We estimate theres a million jobs in the United States in manufacturing that depend just on exports to mexico and thats not counting the partnerships when we send you our bottles and you put great things in them like beer or tequila and we bring them back here. Thats jobs and manufacturing and very good times for all of us. So seeing some of the, let me start with some of the more difficult areas we face, this uncertainty about the border, so the redeployment of cbp officers out of the southwest border to deal with immigration and let me be clear. Im the trade person but immigration is a big focus for manufacturer and weaver called for a solution to what are deep immigration issues and crises at the border. We think congress has a lot to do and we appreciate what the u. S. And mexico came up with. But those slow downs, you know, my phone was ringing off the hook. A lot of it small manufacturers trying to get their products into the United States. The threat of tariffs, obviously, was of deep concern. Again, you know, theres a need to deal with immigration. The u. S. Has its own responsibility. We have a plan, a way forward to talk about that and are very focused on those activities. But those, that element of uncertainty, manufacturers will be holding back, holding back capital investment. Holding back new hires. And that is one of the reasons we are absolutely prioritizing passage of the usmca this year. Its our top legislative priority bar none. We are up on the hill every day. We are out in the states every day to make the case for an agreement that is better in so many areas, whether its modernizing digital rules and innovation and intellectual property to better rules at the border. To stronger labor environment provisions, all now subject to dispute settlement. I think theres no question that this agreement has moved us forward in so many of these key areas where manufacturers are looking for. Let me just end on a slight positive. Weve had all these other uncertainties and issues, but we still have a process in place right now to move usmca forward. We had a very good report from the u. S. International trade commission on this agreement even though there werent a lot of changes on tariffs or new market opening in that respect. We had the removal of the steel and aluminum tariffs between canada and mexico and then the retaliation on our exports. That was a very important positive to a lot of industries and folks up on capitol hill are looking at this. And despite all these other activities, we have seen Speaker Pelosi engage very positively and productively with the administration, particularly usgr set up a working group to try to work through some of the issues that theres concern about. Were bullish on this. We believe this can and will absolutely get done this year. We would like it as soon as possible. We also want this process to work between the House Democrats and the administration to produce a deal that will garner wide and broad bipartisan support. Thats good. Glad to hear a positive twist there at the end. So, jerry, youre right there on the frontier lending, working with clients who have been hit by the uncertainty by the slow downs. What does it took like from your position as one of the major financiers in the texas border region. Thank you, ambassador. I want to also thank the Wilson Center for inviting us here. Ive been a banker doing this for four decades in laredo, the texas. Ive been living the good things and bad things that come out of washington. Dont know. No to shutdowns. No tariffs. Yes to usmca. Having sat in the same seat that the current chairman sat, i sat in her role in 19921993 when we were trying to get nafta passed. We were telling the same story. Back then we were talking about shutting down the consulates along the border. Back there we were talk about the elimination of tariffs. If you look at the trade policies of our country and especially trade agreements the the focus has been jobs and protecting jobs and protecting major sectors which is steel, textile and agriculture. My end the picture of the border back in 1992 had double digit unemployment rates. Brownville was 15 . Laredo was 12 . Other cities in texas also had similar unemployment rates. That was back in 1992. My company was less than a billion dollars as a bank, our regional bank. Were now 12 billion plus. The picture of saying nafta has been good or usmca will continue to be good we live it every day. Were a vivid picture of benefits of trade agreement with our neighbors to the south have been and at our end whats important is that we stay focused and tell the story of what the border is, what were about, rather than having other people like was referred to this morning talk about the borders as if it was a different planet or not part of the United States or some people didnt believe it was part of mexico. Were part of both countries because my day every day starts with a 7 00 a. M. , watching a 7 00 a. M. Press conference over the policies of mexico and my tweets of the night before of our president. Thats why every day life on the border. I live with a fluctuating peso, and the valuations. Thats an ongoing wlief us that do business on the border. Its important for us we stay focused on the importance of usmca and tell the story. Thats what ive been doing for all these years and ill continue to do it as long as im allowed to. I want you to think for a minute the best vignette to remind people why this is so important. We heard a number of them when the border was shut down. We heard a number when 5 and rising tariffs were put out there. But they are important, i think, to get out there for everybody to recall. Ill talk for a minute while you think of this, which is that when nafta was being considered, it was estimated, the Clinton Administration estimated there were 700,000 u. S. Jobs supported by trade with mexico. So the study that we initially did and was done again recently by the sponsors, by trade something worldwide, trade Partnership Worldwide again said you know almost 5 million now. So event times more u. S. Jobs supported by this trade with mexico. 12 million across all of north america. So thats i use that fact quite often to bring home to people that there has been a lot of positive benefits. Not perfect agreement but a lot of positives. Okay. For each of you. Whats your favorite vignette to remind regular people why this is so important . I gave my favorite vignette. I gave my repeat it. So, look. Let me start with the broader statistic. So we can all remember it, so we can use it again. I like that. So, you know, the overall statistic is 40 of what we import from mexico is made in america. Its about 40 u. S. Content. And, frankly the best vignette i got we make bottles and made midwest manufacturing states and those bottles go to mexico and they get filled up with beer, tequila, lots of other things for those that dont like alcoholic beverages and they get sent back here as well as being sent throughout mexico as well and this is absolutely a winwin for workers, for consumers in both our countries. If we put a tariff on those bottles would have a tariff on them when they came back in. Right. So those producers would have that indirect tax as well as soor consumers. I dont know if this is my favorite vignette or not but ill take two quick points. One, we have to remember the world were in today. Its a world where we are partners and neighbors competing against other regions, and we have shared production and that shared production has made us competitive towards those regions. This is the way other regions work too. Asia is organized that way. Europe is organized that way. So we have to see each other as partners rather than competitors. Because the competition is way far from north america. Thats one point. The other point is something that, you know, we have taken a lot of things for granted in the past 25 years. One thing that we have taken for granted is that mexico has chosen the path of trade centralization and open markets. And, you know, mexico has done that, but probably the most powerful tool to look in that has been nafta. So in the absence of the nafta, or the usmca, whichever of those instruments, i dont think we should take anything for granted. I think those are powerful instruments. I think its very powerful to have an International Trade agreement with your most important partner that puts all those splints for a market economy. And thats a value in itself. So lets not take so much things for granted. Thank you. Well i would like everybody to close their eyes and go way back in the way back machine and remember what it was like 25 or 30 years ago when you would get so very excited when spring came and it was strawberry season and it was awesome and then went away. You had to wait for strawberry season. You dont have to wait. You go to the produce Department Everything is there at a good price. Were eating better for it. Healthier for it. So when i think about what has nafta brought, what has trade brought, were so blessed as consums to not even think about not having strawberries almost any day you want them. To think oh, gosh, when the sweet corn season coming, when is this season coming. Asparagus is only in the spring. No asparagus is year round. I think about that and i think about whats being accomplished through the usmca as a positive through food, the three countries are saying lets Work Together on food safety even more. Lets share resources, share data back and forth so we can understand and stop any food borne illness outbreak no matter where it comes from. So increased cooperation between the governments leads to healthier eating and increased trade. Thank you. I remember those rectangular cardboard frozen strawberries. Most of the year you had to break open, filled with sugar and all else. I dont remember that. Do you remember that . I remember that. They were nice and sweet. I liked to pick them up and drink them out of there when i was a kid. But happy we have fresh berries now. I wake up every morning and i thank god that i live in texas, that i live in laredo, texas and i live 1,200 miles away from washington, d. C. [ laughter ] at my end, you know, living on the border and living in those experiences have really made me want to have and many of us in this room as well. Its an ongoing struggle to tell the story of what really, the National North american significance of ports like cities like nogales and laredo. Thats a message that continues to get lost in this debate and discussion. Its not more community. Really these are communities that service all of north america. To me a friends of mine referred a visit first time he went to laredo, texas he said i feel im sitting at the 50yard line of trade. They are right there in the middle of north american tratd which makes us remain competitive in the world and the message of knowing and understanding clearly that mexico is a true partner, a true business partner, not someone that just bows down to everything we say but as a partnership and canada as well, thats what keeps us competitive as the title of this conference so says. So the border communities play a significant role in that debate. Thats why we have to come to washington to tell the story. The smes tell the stories. More communities were made up of smes. Im one of the biggest corporations in my city but i live off the smes. Whats hurt them hurts me. What helps them helps me. Thats the story we try to tell when we come to washington. Right. If we get this usmca passed theres a lot of benefits in there for small businesses. Thats why the process negotiation, when you talk about usmca going from a 22 chapter to a 32 chapter its not a perfect agreement. Every agreement in history is better than a prior agreement. Keep in mind 25 years is nothing. 25 years ago apple was a fruit. Google was something we goggled around in class, right . Amazon was a river in brazil. Todays environment is totally different. Most changes going on at the border washington needs to adapt to those changes. When we talk about the border and the crisis on the border those of us that live down there said the crisis in washington where the acts of congress are not acting they are really impacting creating chaos of doing business that benefits north american continent. I think both sides of the border think about that to each of their capitals as i remember from my time as ambassador in mexico when i would visit the border. So, i would like to see if any of you have some ideas that you would like to share about the outstanding issues in usmca and what you think might be creative ways to think about labor, enforcement, the environment that clearly as ambassador barcena mentioned mexicans have introduced major labor reforms that are going to change that situation. There are no doubt a lot of challenges to put in place, you have to create a whole court system and a whole other institutions but the reform is massive. And its not unreasonable there would be questions about implementing all of that. But just any comments about what kind of thinking might be able to help democrats and republicans and the Administration Come together on these still outstanding issues . Any thoughts . Yeah. I will start mentioning that theres a lot of comfort for democrats. The labor chapter is by far the most ambitious labor chapter that the u. S. Has ever negotiated. I mean, you have several elements there. First of all, you have the very solid and great change that the labor reform is and thats locked into the grid. So if future administration, mexico would like to change or back track from the labor reform and the usmca is enforced that would not be possible because it would be breaching the commitments with the u. S. And canada. And in addition to the labor reform being locked in, into the agreement, you have a very solid labor chapter. You have a settlement thats same for labor and trade but the most flex i believe procedure to present cases ever had in a trade agreement. The standard of proof to present a labor case into a panel is quite flexible. Never been before like that. So, i will not bore you with all the elements but its really a very ambitious labor chapter. What we have been hearing and weve spent a lot of time this past monetary Congress Working very, very in a cooperative way with democrats and republicans, what weve been hearing is a concern about enforcement. And our answer has been that the most efficient tool and enforcement is, by the way, a very logical concern. And we understand that concern. Our answer is that the most efficient tool to address enforcement is the settlement within the grid. If were able to correct a couple of flaws that are in that system, then we will really have a very efficient tool to ensure enforcement. The labor law the labor reform is part of the agreement. And the settlement is Strong Enough to enforce it we can address very fairly such concerns. The same applies for environment. I mean this settlement will provide enforcement for a strong chapter and its difficult for us to pronounce ourselves because its more a local discussion. I mean to be honest, this is a battle that mexico lost at the negotiating table. We didnt want ten years. We accepted those. So we will be very attentive to what congress decides to do. The only concern were raising there is that we very much under line thats very important not to rattle the negotiations, not to open the text. We think its very important to keep the text closed. We have an administration already send that to the senate. This administration did not negotiate this as other administrations so i will certainly see a lot of people in mexico raising their hands and asking for some fixes. So whatever we do, we believe we should keep the text the situate. Thank you, sir. Just a few thoughts. First, and foremost, i, you know, weve done, you know, hundreds of meetings up on capitol hill particularly on the democratic side in the house and a lot of contact with both the hours the senate, the administration. Theres positive intent. Theres a willingness to engage by all these parties and i think thats important, right . I think thats absolutely important. We believe that the process that Speaker Pelosi has set up working with usgr can produce outcomes here. At the same time i do think similar to what sergio said we need to understand whats already on the table and i remember working on capitol hill and looking at and reviewing the original nafta. Labor and environment were side agreements. Right . Enforce your own law. No real dispute settlement, certainly not on anything like collective bargaining or those types of worker rights. Fast forward. We have an agreement with a very specific labor chapter that labor annex that the Mexican Government has adopted the most massive labor reform legislation that weve seen. They are committed to adopt and implement not just enforce their own law but adopt and implement in their local law the Environmental Standards of mutually agreed environmentally agreements of core labor rights that are respected at the International Labor organization, all subject to dispute settlement. Weve come a long way. I think sergio is right, a lot of focus is on mexico. Will mexico fully implement . I think some of that comes down transparency as well, understanding whats there. Does mexico have the capacity to do that . There was as you all know, a very senior staff delegation that went to mexico that met with the Mexican Government. I heard they had a very good reception and they went into these issues and i think look, i think theres a strong desire to work and get there. I think our thoughts in term of how to proceed is lets try to do this more quickly. This agreement was signed last year. Theres been plenty of time to review it. And get into the details, took maybe a little bit of time to get to the table. But we would like to see this process move quickly because delay is causing uncertainty and we would like to try to move this as quickly as possible. We would like to make sure that the standards that are in there, standards on niefrs, other types of standards are kept and we dont unravel an agreement that took what about two years to put together, and we dont want you know manufacturers cant wait another two years for a new agreement to be worked out. Thank you. I want to respond in several ways, ambassador and i think on labor, we have to recognize there are different baselines, different cultural expectations. In mexico the law requires agriculture employers to provide medical, education for children, provide housing and numerous other things. This is required bylaw and part of the deal. Now the wage structures are different and thats a cultural thing and that takes time to address. Weve seen that happening over time and usmca and nafta has been a big part of that. The mexican middle class has grown. Thats reduced net immigration. More mexicans are going back to mexico. That has to be viewed as that economy is building up and that economy will have demand for u. S. Goods. Thats a positive. When you look at labor, going back to that, very few people know three or four years ago mexico made very strict labor changes, especially in Agricultural Sector and other sectors. They defined what is a dangerous job. They said anybody who is below 18 cant work in those kind of jobs. They said a farm worker was a dangerous jobs. Picking fruits. So that had unintended social consequences. People get married and have kids younger in mexico. Where would those people work. These are things we have to work through and create opportunities in a variety of industries. And so i believe the new labor law provides a lot of assurities. It doesnt go into place overnight. The social structure to support it doesnt go into place overnight and to think that were going to have that solved before anyone signs usmca is not realistic. So as we all think about usmca and how we get there and this is not original, i heard this in the past couple of days. If you talked to any politician or heard any politician who has a vote on this and who is against the tariffs but they havent said yes tourch smca ask them why. Explain that. Youre against the rivers but not for passing usmca. Because if we dont pass usmca the president said were back. Prenafta tariffs theres a lot of them. I used to carry around a schedule of what that looked like for fruits and vegetables. Watermelon 35 , cantaloupe 35 . Nafta had its tariffs. When we look back at what was happening 25 years ago, this has been a whole evolution of improvements and dialogue and discussions. We in the privatesector back then were not as involved as we were. We were involved as a coalition but we were not necessarily maybe at the table and be part of the negotiation. We just didnt have a meeting and talk what do you like, what i do like . This goes back to what was going on during the tpp process where you were having ongoing discussion about trade agreements in general. So when we looked at usmca, what we were working on in the rounds there, we wanted to make sure that this agreement was going to be an improvement of nafta. I also agree with an earlier comment it wasnt a bad agreement. Yes it was not a perfect agreement. But it was an agreement that was negotiated and by three counts. Were doing the same thing. Were new yorker. Whats supposed to be better for the three countries. Three president s are doing their job. And at the end of the day well all benefit, well in western and we all participate in the process and not be a spectator. Not be on the sidelines. Be at the table, contribute, not be destructive. The negotiator of mexico, it stuck in my mind when he would speak back 25 years ago he said at the end of the day people trade, governments dont trade. So we the people, those of us that live it every day that will basically out live president s and trade representatives and all due respect ambassadors as well, we all continue to be here and. Live with the decisions that are handed down to us. So our geography is our destiny. We control our own destiny on the border. Were part of contributing to that north american competitiveness. Youre exactly right. When we think about whats happened since 1993 it was the privatesector that built this not the government. They did the framework and priority sector built what was built. One more quick question from each of you and then well go the crowd and invite comments from our fellows here. If we get usmca done, what is the one thing you would like to see us do next . As i think has been mentioned a couple of times a lot of competition going on internationally in the world and sergio was saying that. We need to think about that. Ill start on the other side now and say what would you like to see us turn our attention to if we can get the votes that we need. Two things. Two things i would like to see. Number one i would like and i see it right now that, that the ongoing dialogue of our business negotiation, our trade new yorkers be ongoing not just every five years or every ten years. But we have coning dialogue. We have through the u. S. Chamber and the coalition, u. S. Mexico have a dialogue and u. S. Mexico business. U. S. Chamber had all these u. S. Country councils but never a u. S. Mexico council or Economic Council or u. S. Canada. Those are the kinds of things when we went back, back after naf tax went back home and worked, we need to have that continuity and that ongoing dialogue. Thats an. Important element to me. The other element is i think we should work with congress and make being sure that whatever trade policy we have, that there are no that there are no other i guess issues out there that like, you know, an executive authority impose as tariff that really puts in question what we worked so hard to do, a trade agreement. Because the message will be sent to the world nobody wants to do business with us. They won trust us. Those authorities or powers that have been granted between branches, legislative branches, executive branch, we should not close our eyes and say it cant happen. Obviously we need the to make sure that now congress and privatesector Work Together. Lets make sure we review those issues that are out there that may impact whatever trade impact or trade policy we have in the future. Great. Thanks. I think the second thing you said, i agree wholeheartedly and thats the most important thing. But what i wrote down and i think its a real opportunity and its a way for us to address the regions and seasons and different parts of agriculture and Food Production that we have is how do we combine market streams. We heard about how in manufacturing the companies Work Together to present north American Goods to the world. Now we can do that flu produce and theres a few examples of that. I think strawberry, Avocado Companies from california are great examples. I can grow here, here and here and i can sell to the whole world the goodness i developed. So how can we Work Together to take some of the farmers that have been impacted by trade and give them that opportunity . How can we help them sell to the world together . I think theres opportunity for that when we think creatively. Great. Thank you. Sergio . Two things. With the risk of being repetitive i think the number one concern i would have, number one issue i would think we would the need to address, as i mentioned in my first intervention is the threat of the tariffs because, again, it goes to usmca a. If we dont address that then we cant reap the benefits of the usmca. And number two i would say we have a lot of work to do and here i take the opportunity to thank don canon and christopher for the opportunity to be here. We have a lot of work to do in terms of sharing with stakeholders in washington and outside of washington the benefits of free trade and the benefits of what were doing. On our side it took us 25 years to understand and we needed to be here. Thats why we have now a Permanent Office of the mexican privatesector in d. C. , but i think once this process, i hope it would get in the short term to a successful and we have a usmca in place, we should continue systematically and permanently working on this problem because this is the only way we can promote and can assure we can have this free trade and be competitive for a longer term. Thank you. Linda. A few issues. First and foremost we have to set our minds at fully implementing the agreement we reached and is ratified. There are items in this agreement, some of the regulatory cooperation pieces, southeast sector regulatory issues which are near and dear to the heart of manufacturers and the agricultural and food communities as well. We need to continue to do more of that to stream line the trade between ourselves and mexico and canada, of course as well. The agreement provides as we all know this review mechanism every few years and possibility of changes or all of that. We need to do a better job every year, every month, every week of catal cataloging, whats working, how can we improve, how can be the agents ever solutions and how can we share more about the benefits and pose tifrs. Our business sectors were well aligned but theres more absolutely that i think were committed to doing. Then my fondest wish, my biggest wish and broader than all of us is, i really believe that the three countries need to Work Together to solve the problem thats the broad rules based global system at the wto. We need to figure out ways to preserve, strengthen and modernize that system because if we dont, we will have our north america enclave but well have a Global Economy that will be very hard for all of us to deal with. So we need to make that a priority as we go forward. Thats great. So im going to take the prerogative to add one more item which is the whole idea of competitiveness, globally. Theres a chapter on competitiveness in this agreement. And its going set up a working group, council on competitiveness and that can do all sorts of things. One thing that we at the Wilson Center has looked at is training our workforce because one thing all three countries will face is a changing future of work, and the changing ability of all of us in this room and all of our children and our grandchildren to be able to function in this new workplace and we can Work Together and learn from each other as new technology sweeps through and its much better if we do that learning together, best practices across the continent. So with that please, questions. Right here. Thank you. I have this question primarily for sergio, but miss dempsey can add to it. The two times when we were in mexico city and we were one of the sponsors of a dinner there, we got the same information in mexico city that we got yesterday from Speaker Pelosis staff which basically is they want proof somehow that the Labor Agreement will be enforceable. Now, i dont understand how you can do that and im mystified at that question coming up in these two different time frames because the law was passed within a day or two of this visit. Almost when they were still in mexico city. So what do we do to next step this . Because thats a battle were frieg facing right here in the next few weeks and we wont get to all the great ideas you all expressed until we find answers for that so that we can let them say okay were all yes. Well, okay. Thank you for your question. You know, weve been having a lot of discussion with democrats on this. Weve had over 70 meetings in the house. Explaining the level of ambition, level of reform. It is groundbreaking. It is really huge change in terms of how business and labor would relate. It would be new infrastructure in place. To give you and example, today labor disputes are settled in an organization that has three members. Department of labor. Representation of business. And representation of unions. The law that we have approved establishes that every labor dispute will be solved in a judicial tribunal. So we have to establish judicial tribunals all over the country. We have an agreed to have every single bargaining, collective bargaining agreement. Or every single Union Election to be approved by the majority of workers and such majority has to be demonstrated through a vote that has to be secret, personal and free. We have over 400,000 collective bargaining agreements that we have to obey to this rule in four years. I give you just this example so you understand this is a very ambitious process that will take some time and we have been explaining these to the stakeholders here. And i think they have understood that. But you need answers. Okay. But how do we address this concern . And the way, i think, theres a very clear answer. We have a dispute settlement in the agreement that has the right incentives to work. If you feel. If the labor is part of the agreement. Lets say that the u. S. Considers that mexico is not implementing the labor reform. The agreement says that the u. S. Can bring a complaint to the dispute process by National Tribunal will be formed. The decision made by the tribunal is binding and if mexico does not abide by that decision, the u. S. Would have the right through this process to impose tariffs. Trade retaliation. You have the right incentives there. This dispute settlement has a couple of flaws and has not been working because of those flaws. I wont bore you with those flaws. I can tell you those flaws can be corrected without reopening the text. So one solution is to correct those flaws through an exchange of letters which very simple. We have to select 30 traders up front and the others we have to agree once a party complains the system is established. If we agree to that, and we bring those letters to congress and to Mexican Senate and to canadian parliament, then we have a very efficient tool to address these enforcement concerns. And i think, tony, we have in every single concern, a path to a solution. So im optimistic in the sense that if theres a political will there i think that theres way to get this, this technique and solutions out there. Plus i would just add, you know, one it is the question, right . Thats exactly the question. If we all had the answer maybe we would be looking at a congressional vote in early july. I think the other piece of this that needs to be looked at is the transparency piece, right . You just talked about, serge jobs a huge number of collective bargaining agreements. How do we in the United States, how do our members of Congress Learn about, you know, these changes Going Forward . We also like to avoid dispute settlement if we can. We would like things to be implemented. So i think theres a measure of transparency there thats going be part of the solution that ultimately will be there. But, again, i think the sides are working on this. I think per are happens they dont have that solution yet but i think well all try to push them together to work on that as quickly as possible. President trumps favorite words is rereciprocity. You have to worry what you ask for. So the question is do you want to receive what youre willing to give. Thats something we need to keep in mind with our friends up on the hill. Just quickly, one other aspect of this, if a number of parts in American Society have been urging these reforms for a while they should look for ways to support them and this is going to be a complicated process. Think of all those labor leaders who will be emerging out of a democratic process who had never had experience running a union, establishing a union, doing other things. Theres a big space for Technical Assistance for helping people get this organized and organized in a coherent way. Its not going easy for you. Other questions . Hi. My question is for mr. Gomez, also on enforcement. Robert lighthizer yesterday was talking to House Democrats in ways and means and he said the theres going some level of monitoring of whats going on in the process of labor reform, and also over the years in how its working at the Company Level and he said that there will be a role for american unions to bring complaints if they believe that something is not right at a certain facility. I want to get workable that is from mexicos private sectors perspective. Well, i agree with linda. Transparency helps a lot. And i think the mexican private sector is fully committed to the reform. I think its an important change. I think at the end of the day we will be a more competitive economy having these new framework for the relation between management and labor. So mexican private sector is fully on board and is working as of the first day into putting all this into place. To be honest, most of the companies that are related to International Trade and Foreign Investment are already in these practices, very close to those. So this is more a challenge for small and medium businesses that are not so open to International Trade. And the question about the complaints and monitoring, i mean, again, we have a framework for that. The agreement provides for that. We like that because it works and it applies to environment, labor and to trade. And weve said several times that certainty is the most important value. Honestly certainty has a lot to do with so were fully in. The way it works is that the percent complains to government, but any government has the possibility to create its own internal procedures and to bring complaints internally the way they want. But the u. S. Government has the right to put a complaint to the mexican and canadian government if the agreement is not being enforced in any matter, trade, environment and labor. Another question. Okay. Well, thank you all very much. Its been a great pleasure for me. Thank you for being here. [ applause ] its an allday discussion at the Wilson Center on u. S. mexico relations. Theyll be talking about the border next in the next panel here on cspan 3 will include the Deputy Commissioner of border and customs protection robert perez. The Prime Minister of canada visiting the white house today talking with the president about the u. S. canada mexico trade agreement. Also speaking with House Speaker nancy pelosi. Were covering that. Well show those comments later in our program schedule. All right. If i could ask you to take your seats, please. The moment weve all been waiting for. Weve been talking about cpb and the Important Role these important agencies play in creating a u. Competitive u. S. mexico border. Were really excited to have our guest speaker here today. Whether youre in the private sector, trade organization, if youre here, if you have anything to do with the border, you care very much about your ongoing relationship with cbp. Thats certainly the case for us at the border trade alliance. Our relationship, our partnership, the communication is critical. Cbp ensures Border Security and the efficient movement of people and goods across our ports of entry. Were grateful for cbps work to reduce border wait times, which is one of the most challenging aspects of trade. Its my great pleasure to introduce john wagner. Hes the deputy executive assistant commissioner for the office of Field Operations at the u. S. Customs and border protection. He began his Law Enforcement career in 1991 when he joined the u. S. Customs service as a customs inspector and worked at the new York New Jersey seaport and the land porter port of entry at laredo, texas, before being assigned to headquarters. You have a fan here. Serving in his current role since 2014, mr. Wagner oversees nearly 30,000 employees including approximately 23,000 cbp officers and over 2400 cbp agricultural specialists. An annual budget of 4. 8 billion provide operations at over 30 ports of entry and the immigration, customs and commercial trade related missions of cbp. In his 25 years must of service, mr. Wagner has been a leader in developing many successful efforts for the organization, including the development of Global Entry Program and the automated passport control kiosks for international travelers. Overall mr. Wagner is recognized as a driving force behiwhile simultaneously enhancing Security Operations at the ports of entry. Please join me in recognizing mr. Wagner, deputy executive assistant commissioner. [ applause ] you didnt have to say the whole title. You earned it. No. Its too long. Its not good to have a long title in washington. Yeah, i lived and worked in laredo from 19931999. I was the menudo champion in 1999. Ive got a trophy about this big. How do you earn that . Its a story i cant tell up here but maybe afterwards. Thank you for that kind intro and i appreciate the opportunity to talk to everyone about what were doing in cbp. The border, the challenges today are just like weve never seen before. Well start with the migrant crisis. Everyone knows were encountering record numbers like weve never seen before, just an unprecedented flow of people coming through the border. Its impacting the whole country. Its impacting everything were trying to do. Its impacting both countries really. Weve got to figure out ways to Work Together to solve these. Earlier this month the u. S. And mexico got together to talk about some of these challenges and the vital importance of the mark between both countries. Weve agreed to strengthen that cooperation and secure the border and make the border a lot more efficient. The border is open to business and its vital to both countries that it remains so and it remains secure. Our Border Patrol agents, our cbp officers, we recognize that delicate balancing act that defines cbps duty, protect the border while facilitating trade and travel. To that end were determined to manage this Border Security crisis. Its a humanitarian crisis. As best we can while ensuring the border remains open and all the other work we do around the country and around the world continues to operate. So the importance of this is really leveraging a lot of technology and a lot of cooperation. You may have heard about our unified cargo processing. This was something we built with the government of mexico. One stop Business Environment for processing inbound and out bound cargo and truck, rail and eventually air modes. We work with s. A. T. In mexico and do joint cargo clearance and joint cargo examinations. You know, the benefits, what weve seen, it enhances security on both sides. Its a streamlined operation. Weve seen 50 or greater reduction in wait times when we can do this. Weve seen a 99 trade compliance rate for participants in this and lowering the cost of business for everyone in these operations. We started this in laredo. Im still laredo proud after all these years. Where we laumplg launched a car preinspection pilot. Weve expanded this across the southwest border. Most recently we want ent to th port of tecate. For next steps were meeting collectively with s. A. T. And our colleagues in the Canada Border Services agency and working on joint criteria for unified cargo processing in the air cargo environment. We plan to launch this soon in phoenix at the mesa gateway user fee airport. Were discussing other locations, primarily in texas, to capitalize on the unified cargo processing mediate cross border trade benefits. So as we talk about the technology and our nonintrusive inspection systems, you know, this is a program weve built over the years. I laugh because when i worked on the border down in laredo, the only technology we had was a drill a drill. The trucks would drive by and wed drill holes in them. We had a little brass mallet and weve tap the tanks. It took years for us to build up this capability. Now weve got hundreds of systems out there and weve built this fleet of this nonintrusive inspection equipment. We dont have to drill holes in things anymore. We think about, okay, whats next, where do we go with this next. Congress was very generous to us last year. We were given over 500 million to build out, recapitalize that fleet. Some of this equipment is 15, 20, 25 years old. We dont want to buy the same stuff, so we challenge ourselves what can we do next with this. Really this has the potential to transform how we do cargo processing on the border. And our vision is really to build these drivethrough systems where if a truck could drive through and we could have a high energy and a low Energy System operating at the same time so we use low energy on the cab where the drivers in there and the high energy on the cargo and we can centralize where these images go to and we can have algorithms help us interpret that data. Not only could we potentially scan 100 of the trucks coming in but we could do it really quick where the trucks might not have to stop or might not have to stop for very long to do that. If you look at how we build out facilities and how we can route the trucks differently through our facility to take advantage of this and if we can tie all this in together and ill talk about facial recognition a little bit later. Can do facial recognition on the truck driver when they pull up and that kicks off the transaction and the scans and all this can potentially be automated. Theres Great Potential there to completely transform how we do those truck inspections. Were testing some of the low Energy Systems in brownsville where we do empty trucks as they pass through. You see it with the trains. The trains can come through slowly and we can image and scan that train as it comes by. Theres no reason we cant build a system system for trucks. You think about the potential of what that brings to all of us to be able to build out that system. Thank you to all the communities and operators working with us to build these out. And as we test this equipment over the year into next year, we really look forward to doing this. And tying it into the advances we made with rifd. I mentioned the facial recognition, the biometrics, the license plate readers. For people, were looking at some selfreporting applications on a smart phone. Its really going to be an exciting time for us over the next couple of years as we develop new concepts and new ideas. One of the things we like to pride ourselves in cbp is were never satisfied with the status quo. Were coming up on our 230th Year Anniversary at the end of july with the formation of the customs service. I look at the iterations over the years of what weve been able to do. We do that by the commissioner now acting secretary mcalee than once coined the phrase. Were always going to challenge the status quo and find better ways to do things. The facial recognition, were doing a lot of work at the airports, the seaports. Were trying some things out in the pedestrian lanes at the border. Were trying to capitalize on data we already have. If everyone has a travel document, it means weve already the got photos of the people. Lets figure out a way to do this as the cameras get better and better and can take a picture and just match against that travel document without us having to handle the document or read the rifd scan. As we build out systems to do this, what does crossing that border then look like . Should we equip officers with bodyworn cameras that as theyre talking to drivers, it automatically picks the face up and automatically runs the qu y queries we need to run and how much time that can save us and how much more accurate that can make us too. When i say were open for business, you know, it also means automating our processes and how we handle routine and low risk entries. It frees officers and devotes more attention to high risk cargo. More importantly it helps all of your members, americas inport and export community. Ace is a great example, block chain technology, how that fits in. Were going to find a way to figure that out. We look at all the things happening in the Consumer World today, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, predictive analytics. We want to do that in partnership with all of you. You know, we look at also theres still a Human Element to this, the staffing piece of what we do. For years we struggled with the staffing, especially on the southwest border. We have high turnover rates there. You know, we struggle to hire officers timely and keep those vacant positions funded. Congress was very generous to us a couple years ago, gave us 2,000 officers in our budget. For a couple years we could only hire 1,000 of them. Im glad to reported this year based on work we started last year where we hired above our attrition about 300 officers. This year were on pace to hire a thousand over attrition or potentially 1200 to 1300 over attrition. Our normal attrition is about 700 to 800 a year. Were looking to hire 2,000 cbp officers. By the end of this year we should have all those vacancies filled. I dont want to say the hiring process is fixed because it still takes a long time. Its about focusing our recruiters around the country, building up what we call destination guides. So if were recruiting in chicago and we have vacancies in el paso, we can talk to potential job applicants about the benefits of living and working in el paso or any other station where we need to put people. Weve been out talking to a lot of chambers of commerce. How do you sell the city to attract business . If we could bring 100 federal employees down here and help us convince people these are great places to live. I can tell you. I went from new york city to la r laredo. I can sell them on the agency. Thats easy. But how do we sell them on the work we do and go to the locations where we perform this work and whats so great about living around working there. But weve kicked off some what we call a fast track hiring process, a little pilot we ran. We took a handful of applicants. The thing with hr, when you apply for a job you go to the bottom of the pile and youve got to wait for your application to come to the top. What if we preevaluated people and put the easy applicants on the top, how quick could we hire somebody . We hired somebody what normally takes 10 to 12 months, we hired somebody in 26 days start to finish and they went to laredo. So we had a motivated applicant and we had a spot for them in about a month. Now we take those lessons and incorporate them into the bigger hiring process. I know if we can fix that hiring process, we can attract quality applicants into our workforce because they need a job and they want a job quickly. Who has 12 months to wait for a job . Somebody else will scoop you up in the meantime. Were making plans for potentially several more thousand next year depending, of course, how the budget shakes out and see what our vacancy rate is at that point in time. This is critically important because even with the migration crisis and some of the challenges and struggles weve had in managing that weve got 700 officers right now detailed from and the country just to the Border Patrol stations. We started with a bunch from the southwest border. We saw the trucks back up and the cars back up. Then we went to the airports and seaports and started detailing people to the Border Patrol stations to help them out, you know, in really just the care and processing of the migrants as they go into that process and get that work done. But this is really the only way weve been able to survive, because our southwest border is fairly well staffed to what were funded for right now. If we didnt have that at this point in time, it would be probably catastrophic on us if we didnt have that. So were still pushing the hiring very strongly. Were still working on that process. Now it becomes a training problem, how do you get so many people through the academy and get them through quickly. We just jammed three more classes through this year. Were going to train over 2,000 new cbp officers this year which are record breaking numbers. Were really pushing that hard because the people are the best part of our workforce. The technology is great but we need the people to operate it. We need the people to interpret it and we need the people to interact with you and think of new things to do and come up with better ways to do things. As we look at building a competitive border, it requires all of us. We have to adapt, adjust and accommodate to change. Like i mentioned, the pace on us is always relentless. The first customs modernization act passed in 1993, probably a couple of generations ago. That year we recognized 600 websites in the whole world. At the time the socalled mod act was radical. It created the National Customs automation program. Endcap. Anybody remember that one . Like everything else, trade has undergone a massive transformation. Ecommerce, look at how thats up ended how we do things and the volume of epackets we get in the mail coming from china and around the world and how do we adapt to these new business models. We cant sit back and say you have to do it this way because weve always done it that way. Earlier this year thanks to our stake holders and partner government agencies, weve unveiled a map for the road ahead. Theres five key pillars. First we believe that ace and our other systems function as important infrastructure. Thats just as valuable as our roads and bridges. We want to ensure a selffunding stream so that infrastructure will not fail when our stake holders and partners need it most. Second is building on our commitment to one u. S. Government. Cpb wants to use the data we gather through ace more effectively. So were looking at data shares opportunities with our stake holders and Partner Agencies to make better decisions in a more timely fashion. Thirdly, we want to make sure we work with our Industry Partners to identify roles and responsibilities that may exist outside current definitions. Fourth, we support intelligent enforcement, a concept of working with the stake holders to improve Risk Management and impact our efforts to determine high risk activity to deter noncompliance and fraudulent behavior. Lastly, we recognize that 20th century trade practices cannot support 21st century trade. These shipments are no longer entirely representative of how the International Trade operates. We have to figure out a way to adjust that. Well talk about the usmca for a minute. Three countries are reviewing it to determine what new legislation is required prior to passing it. This includes provisions that directly affect cbp and homeland Security Operations. The entry of force into this would represent really a historic milestone in u. S. Trade policy, as it would signify for the first time the u. S. s renegotiating to replace an existing free trade agreement. Theres large sections of the old nafta that remain untouched. It provides unique opportunities for us to enhance our trade mission. It codifies ambitious Customs Enforcement and trade facilitation standards while adapting to a modern Technology Driven landscape that didnt exist when nafta first started. Just to conclude and open up for a couple of questions if we have time. We have to continue to challenge ourselves to find better ways to make it more efficient and make it more secure. Im pretty confident based on the work that weve done for many, many, many years that were going to continue to challenge ourselves to find better ways to do things. So thanks for the opportunity to be here and open up for any questions you may have for us. [ applause ] im going to take the liberty of asking the first question. You cant have my menudo recipe. So you talk about the hiring and the 2,000 officers that are going through the academy this year. Were lacking still the 700 agents that were taken from the northern border and airports and seaports. Is that the priority, to replace those positions that are no longer there . You know, we greatly appreciate the return of some of the agents, but were still experiencing huge delays at many of our ports of entry, which even before the staffing issue was an issue. Right. The 700 are not permanent relocations. At least we hope not. If the migration crisis comes to an end or becomes more manageable, those officers will deploy back to their ports of entry. But at this point theres no plans or indications that those are permanent reassignments. How much longer this goes on is tough to predict right now. The numbers are still staggering. As that starts to hopefully die down, those officers will redeploy back. If it takes a year yeah, thats the challenge weve got to figure out. You know, the hiring, you know, right now most of the vacancies theres a couple of the large airports haare struggling with vacancie vacancies. These officers, the expectation is they will go back, though. The time frame, were hoping its shorter rather than longer but thats what weve got to plan for. It will be a tough summer to get through if this continues because you just cant pull 700 officers out and deploy them. Its tough. Yeah. At mesa were still down one lane. San ya sid row is staffed. Theres no way to pull 700 people off the line and put them to this activity. Again, this activity is essential to what were trying to do. We try to spread it out around the country so one place isnt impacted worse than others. We have several questions. Jerry, real quick first and then go to sam. First of all, thank you for your service. I agree with you. I think before anyone puts on a star they should have served at laredo at one time or another. My question is given the environment that were in today, if you had your choice between technology and more lanes on ports of entry, what would you prefer in regards to the efficiency of our port of entry operations . Both really. Recognize that we cant always just up and build bigger ports and more lanes. How do we maximize the infrastructure thats there today and are we maximizing that . You know, is the technology such that its not creating additional work . Were not creating additional gauntlets. Too often we throw something out and it creates another step and ten more people run it. Were trying to infuse that technology to make that transaction more efficient so we can get more throughput through that existing infrastructure while we also work to expand it. Sam . Border trade Alliance Public policy. Commissioner wagner, weve been through a lot of the permutations that youre talking about from 199 3. That seems to me to be the backbone of any future one port unified cargo processing concept. I dont see anywhere thats coming into a request or funding by cbp. Were trying to do it in small ports because we want to improve it. They cant put all the people on the internet at the same time to do their work. So what about that kind of stuff . No. Thats a great point too, is we roll out all this technology and do we have the electricity to plug it in, do we have the internet lines to make it work . And i think weve got to look at that infrastructure. Thats a great point. I dont have an answer right now. Yeah. Well take a look at that too. Weve had that challenge in a lot of places. Jim darling from mcallen. I was wondering when are we going to start the return to mexico policy on the eastern side of the border . Theyre discussing this pretty aggressively. I dont have a date to announce just yet but its being pretty aggressively pursued in the right hlocations and where to d that. Are we coordinating with the authorities in the city for that . We should be, yeah. Gustavo with the smart border coalition. So you laid out a number of technologies, facial regular in addition, use of cell phones and such. Where do you see cbp in the next five years as far as implementing these things and where . Are you considering across the entire southern border . What are your priorities as far as the technologies . Youll see some of this being rolled out as we speak, some of these systems like a drivethrough nii system, we have to build that. We have to build and test it. Over the next couple of years shortterm i see this stuff coming out and really starting to change the landscape of how trucks and cars and people move back and forth across the border. Weve got to think about what should the facility look like . Which way should the trucks go . Can we actually have a truck roll through the border without stopping . Theres some value in an officer talking to the driver, but if were scanning the whole truck, do we need that . We havent answered that question yet. But i think those are the things well start to figure out as we test this and see the capabilities of it and what it does for us. But i do see dramatic change within the next five years. Im pretty confident were going to roll out a lot of these systems, a lot of this technology and get out of this process in the booth of typing data in or paper forms and getting rid of a lot of that. Thats really our focus. You know, make the precious Human Resource as efficient as can be and focused on the work that we need the officers doing, you know, not so much doing a scripted transaction in a booth, be it a truck or a car or pedestrians or at the airport. I want to get rid of the keyboards, get rid of the mice. Youve still got the officer there in the primary booth clicking. We have young adults coming out of college and they go, whats a mouse . So weve got to rebuild a lot of that stuff. But that works underway. I really think within the next five years youre going to see some dramatic changes. The facial recognition, were testing it in arizona in a couple of the pedestrian lanes. Really spectacular results. We got 130 something imposters in just a couple of months coming through with legitimate documents and they know the camera is there. After the first few hours Everybody Knows its there. But well roll that out. Pedestrians will start coming and going a lot quicker to do that. We tested in the vehicle lanes, cameras that could see inside the vehicle. We could capture, you know, high Quality Images of people in the cars. Now, how we use that and what we do with that, weve got a lot of work to do with that. And whats the infrastructure requirement behind it, do we have the lines to plug them in, can we move pictures back and forth this quickly. Weve got a lot of teams really dedicated and focused to do this. Were committed to doing it. But the nii systems are really going to be a big big driver of this, i think. Thanks very much. This has been a fascinating conversation. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about, theres been many programs whether its sentry or fast. Theres special programs for a special segment of traffic to be moved through faster. And oftentimes cars need to wait in a line mixed together with all the other traffic for a while before they get to that special lane and they get that special passage. As youre rolling out new technology, how much of it is going to be available to everyone versus just a special program . And what are you doing to incentivize having more people, more companies, more Truck Drivers enroll in those special programs so we dont keep running into that challenge . Because i know the physical infrastructure is a big part of the challenge, but i think we have to be realistic that we cant always just build the special lanes out as far back as we need to. So what we need to do, in my opinion at least, is get more of the traffic over to that special lane because obviously it works better. How are you thinking about that kind of balancing between special programs, general traffic and figuring out how to make sure that as youre deploying new technology its improving overall throughput . The special programs are special for a reason. Theyre not going to be for everyone. If everyones in it, youre back to where you started in a way. But the people that are going to cross frequently, the trucks that are going to cross frequently, people that are going to do business frequently, weve got to leverage their experience in crossing the border and build a trust component in that to segment that traffic out so we can deal with the rest. Yes rk, theres absolutely physl limitations as you go over the bridge and onto the other side and youre on the city streets, so we need some help from the transportation authorities, the City Planners to helping us build for the future in these and how far should these lanes extend back. If you go to arizona, california where there is no bridge, how should we manage that traffic to do that . One thing we thought was pretty successful at san ysidro we said our goal is to have a 15 minute wait or less. We divided the rest of the lanes by the ready lanes so the people with the rifd enabled documents versus everyone else. Well keep that ready lane wait to half of what the regular lane is. We try to manage those booths because really flipping a switch to convert them and change the sign at the top that were keeping our promise that if you enroll in these special programs and jump through those hoops, theres a meaningful benefit for you. Thats something weve got to continue to work at. Really we need a lot of help from all of you. Were not experts in the logistics of transportation and how many lanes and we get into the city streets. We have no expertise in that area so we really need all of you to help us request that and s talk about these ideas. Thank you. Hi. Thanks for being here. Id like to hear your comments on the potential for expanding preclearance in mexico and also on the potential for collaboration with mexico in mexican ports. I think thats an area where perhaps we havent explored enough. Preclearance, were around the world trying to talk to different airports about how to expand our preclearance operations. We think its a Great Security model. We think its a great facilitation model. Its certainly easy on the travelers if you can clear cbp before you depart. But it gets into the negotiations then on ones with the Airport Authority on the space within that airport, where it would operate, where the airlines are going to park, which gates would be available, how do you secure that space. And then the negotiations with the government authorities that would allow us to operate on their soil and under what conditions and what would we be allowed to do or not allowed to do or whats permissible within that defined space that we could do that. And then the cost about who funds the cost and how its paid and how do we reach agreements on that. And for our employees its the privileges and immunities of working there and their families and, you know, the residences and where they work and go to school and do that depending on how big the operation is. Theres a lot of work to go through to do that but were committed to that preclearance model. We think it addresses a lot of security and facilitation things but also the cooperation. When were on site with our colleagues from the other governments and the stakeholders from the other government, it builds that National Cooperation and it builds out a lot of the communication back and forth so you think about the benefits that brings too. Were committed to doing this. Were still talking to a lot of Different Countries about wheres the right fit to do it and who would allow us to do it there and whats the impact on the u. S. Airports, are there domestic gates you can park at. Some of the airports are full so we have to figure out where those planes could come in if they dont have to come to the customs arrival hall to do that. We really think its definitely a priority for us. You know, were continuing to work through a lot of those negotiations. The other question was . Was about mexican ports. I think theres potential for great cooperation there. You know, we have cbp officers all around the world and our Container Security Initiative Program and being on site working with our colleagues in the other customs agencies, that flow of communication and gent intelligence and expertise back and forth pays dividends for both countries and working in partnership to look at risks that both countries are going to be concerned with. They might not always be the same, but theyre always compatible and the systems and the techniques to uncover them are always compatible. Even if youre looking at commercial violations versus r narcoti narcotics, theres always a path to figure out what are the tools and techniques we use to identify these, do the inspections and do it in a way thats most efficient. So i think theres a Great Potential to expand on a lot of the work there now. Think we had another question over there. Hi, commissioner. Thanks for being here. Brian bradley with american shipper. I was just wondering if you could talk a little about any plans to boost recruiting at ports of entry in rural locations. One of the things weve done in our hard to fill locations some are rural, some arent but weve been offering hiring bonuses. Well pay upwards of 25, sometimes 30 of the officers first three years of salary to go to these locations. That was key in how we filled a lot of the southwest border ports. You know, we had them in california and texas across the border, a smattering of places along the northern border, doing it in San Francisco right now because just the cost of living there, its tough for us to recruit people to live there. Those hiring bonuses have put out well over a thousand of those in the last couple of years and were seeing most of the officers will stay at least those three years to attain those bonuses to do that. Then from there, we have various we call them lateral reassignment policies where officers have the opportunity to go to other ports of entry. They have the opportunity to transfer, they have the opportunity to swap with other officers around the country. Through preclearance, they have the opportunity to go overseas. Theyre always welcome to come to washington and work for me. I dont get too many takers on that. But we try to build out that career path too so its not just about selling that first station that youre at, its about what does your career look like when you come work for us and selling the full capabilities of the agency to these young adults that want to come work for us. Thats really proven successful to do that. Thats where weve seen, you know, our record numbers of hiring. We actually have enough people in the pipeline right now to hire a couple of thousand for next year. I think we actually have enough applicants right now that as they work their way through, we could hire well over 3,000 officers next year provided we have the funding to do so and the ability to train that many. Again, those are good problems to have. But were not slowing down on the recruiting and the hiring incentives to do that. But part of it, like i mentioned earlier too because packaging up about whats great about working at different places around the country. As we recruit around the country, lets not just recruit for our local ports but lets recruit nationwide. Then weve got to get our recruiters trained about where the vacancies are, where are people needed most. What its like to work in otai mesa if i live in new york. Were providing the school options, the entertainment options, the cultural things that are there, the housing costs, how much money youre going to make, what your overtime pay is going to be, whats your retention bonus, your Foreign Language bonus and whats your daily work life like so we can recruit people to all the places we actually need them. We can cover the entire country. Really this targeted focused recruiting has helped us as well too. So our attrition, its generally about 4 a year. I mentioned earlier thats 750 to about 800 officers. Most of our attrition, more than half of it is officers retire out of this occupation. So we dont see a lot of people quitting. We dont see a lot of people going to other agencies. Theyre coming in, spending their career with us. Because most of them are leaving through retirement or taking different jobs in the agency out of the uniform series, thats like another 20 . You look at 70 of our attrition is theyre staying with cbp or retiring. We eere Pretty Healthy there. Now its just about getting those initial applications through the process and were hard at work on that because we dont want to slow down any of this momentum. We really appreciate the time youve taken. We had a very hearty discussion. I appreciate everybody for participating. I want to reiterate again our thanks. You know, many of the conversations weve had today were focused on from the different panelists and speakers talking about the need for cooperation and coordination and not just with border stakeholders but with your counterpart in mexico. You guys really have done a tremendous job working with your counterpart in mexico. We really commend you for that. Its critical for all the stakeholders involved. I again want to applaud you for that. We look forward to supplemental appropriations bill which is right now being considered. Many of us are pushing for that as we need to support the needs and the current increasing demands that we have today. Thank you again for taking the time to be with us. Thank you. [ applause ]. Ladies and gentlemen, please grab your seats. Were going to get the last panel started. Thanks to the few and the proud who are here. Weve got a few more in the hallway who will come in and join us, but thanks for sticking with us throughout the whole session. We have one more interesting session. For me, this is a really important one. Weve spoken for a lot of the day about how it is that you can move things back and forth across the border the most efficiently, the most effectively. Understanding how you can do that while you balance some of the security challenges at the border. But i dont think thats enough. Thats not enough for u. S. Border communities. Thats not enough for Mexican Border communities to really have the vibrant communities that we want, the quality of life that people in the border region aspire to. We need to do more than just move widgets back and forth along the border. Theres the combination of the kpetive advantages of mexico and the United States side by side that makes working and producing in the border region particularly attractive and interesting. I mean, if we look back over time and go back to, say, the Border Industrialization Program of the 1960s, it was the beginning of free trade between our two countries, you know, focused on the border region, the Mexican Border communities in particular. It was effective in attracting a certain amount of manufacturing investment to that part of the border, to the mexican side of the border. Its called the twin plant model. That was the idea of the program. Meaning that there would be a plant on the mexican side of the border and a plant on the u. S. Side of the border. The mexican side of the border, those plants appeared, but oftentimes they didnt have that twin component on the u. S. Side of the border. That was a necessary condition for Economic Development but it wasnt sufficient. To get those investments on the u. S. Side of the border, we needed people like these guys here to go out and make the case to companies that this is actually the right place to be doing the business. And then we need the set of factors that makes it really attractive for those companies to land in those regions. Thats some of the things i want to think through and talk to our panelists about today. But i think theres a ton in that space of what else is needed that we can think about. I mean, Workforce Development is more key than ever, having the qualified, welltrained workforce to operate more sophisticated machines and equipment than ever is one of the things that companies are looking for. Quality of life like john wagner from cbp was just talking about is what Everybody Needs in their local community to attract talent to fill those positions so Companies Want to go and do business there. Access to energy, access to infrastructure. The list goes kind of on and on and we can get some prioritization as to what the key elements are from those who live and work in this time of business along the u. S. mexico border. Im thrilled to have three great panelists with me here today. You have their bios in your packet so you can read a bit more about them. Frederi frederi frederico has a number of previous positions that hes held in the City Government and the state government. He worked as a mexican customs broker for a long time so a lot of different experiences hell be drawing upon. To his left is john borella. Three different states, new mexico, texas and chihuahua and that tristate area along the border. He has a lot of fascinating experience that we can draw on here as well. Finally is martio lasoya with the greater brownsville incentives corporation, is executive director and ceo. He also sits on the board of directors for the congressional for toyota previously in san antonio. Thanks for joining us. I will say one last thing before i jump into this. I have done a bunch of work over the years on Economic Development and the boarder region but recently wrote a chapter for a book about to be published through the university of Arizona Press and interviewed two out of three of these gentleman and i had a chance to talk to federico and to john about this process and details and will talked about it previously. And had a chance to talk to other stakeholders in the greater brownsville over an economic project over the last several years, eda, the department of commerce helped fund. This will be a good chance for us to dig deep on these issues. As were Getting Started i want to give you a couple of minutes to talk about your comments about your particular part of the border and doing economic work in a cross border setting along the crossmexico boarder. Mario, we can go to yours and get that done and jump into the more conversational piece of this program as well. Good afternoon, everybody. What i thought id do, through small set of slides, kind of set up the condition of what were talking about here and i think that will open up some conversation. So brownsville is at the tip tip of southern texas, way down at the bottom border. You can see where it is. We have a port of brownsville. I think a lot of people think san antonio is south texas, we still have farther left, south to go, right . These numbers are not just relevant to brownsville, relevant to a lot of communities in the border region. It is the Largest Community in the rio grande day valley. 31 is below the poverty level. I have another chart that shows what does it look like compared to our neighbors. We just looked at this data, 24,000 per capita, you look at consensus, 13,000 per capita, really the poorest in the country. Median income, 64 make it out of high school and 14 dont make it out of ninth grade. You start looking at the Human Capital, this is the challenge we have in the border region. I started using the last number and we saw the cep commissioner talk about the Digital Divide and somebody in the audience asked whats the connectivity in terms of broadband. 61 of households in brownsville are not connected. You are going into the Technology Phase and teachers asking students to do Research Online and putting home work on line, its a further struggle. Thats the point im trying to make here. Heres the comparison. You can see literally the 3 poorest msas in the country, on your texas border. Texas, by 15 . So, in terms of problem solving we really need to hit it with a lot of different prongs, a lot of different angles. Education and Workforce Development are literally our top item, based on the condition i just showed you, disconnected condition, poor condition, education attainment. We feel Workforce Development is key, especially when we look at high skill hightech programs and the lead time to get somebody prepared to assume jobs of tomorrow it usually takes 46 years. We need to start them in the middle school and get them going. We recently launched a workforce where we go around and two weeks ago we were awarded the typical workforce award for texas. So were very proud of the work were doing and we want to continue to share across the valley as we go. The pathway for technology passed about two sessions ago, senate bill 22, what it does, allows High School Students to graduate with a two year degree or technical degree. A lot of you did that but not a technical degree. We need dual Credit Technology to get our students in the hightech space right away, while in high school so when they graduate they have technical degree and High School Diploma. There are about 15 schools in this space in dallas and two more south in brownsville, texas. We are working on creating a manufacturering hub. Based on whats happening with brownsville, spacex and ship building and others coming into the region we feel we need be prepared in a major way not just wildfires but research and development, we hope to do it with a multiuniversity system. University of texas, texas a m and others, which will make it a regional concept. Texas manufacturing and assistance center, if youre familiar with that, funded through the department of commerce, nift, a grant given to texas, creates nine partnerships in manufacturing assistance. We want too change its scope of work or add its scope of work to include Workforce Development as well. Regional partnerships, we work very hard with the council there and they helped us Work Together, as chris mentioned, the twin plant system and try to sell that system a little more aggressively. Recently in san antonio, in terms of what are we doing in a key innovative ways to incentivi incentivize companies, were not incentivizing them unless they have high pay jobs at increased level of pay. We recently closed six fields, the average was 15. 40 an hour, which is a lot in the brownsville area. Which creates a 42 million payroll estimate, which incentivizes companies to come in. Were trying to meet these targets together and the thought is to share this across the valley and by national perspective. Thats what i have. I thought i would put that together so we can understand the condition in the border region. Perfect. Thanks very much. The border is very diverse. A lot of different conditions around different parts of the border. We have several communities represented here. San diego context would be different than brownsville context. Each community has a different set of challenges but different set of assets they bring to the table as well. John, do you want to talk about how it is the border plex works and what it is and anything you want to get us kicked off with . Sure. Thanks, chris and many many thanks for all of you being here and the Wilson Center hosting this and all my friends and allies in the audience. Thank you. We have a lot of issues to deal with and address. The Borderplex Alliance is unique, to my knowledge the only privately organization that represents three states and two countries. We defined our region, El Paso County and my home county. Its comprised of 2. 5 million residents. You put it in the United States, it would rank in the top 20 msas in the United States. Geographically located as south as brownsville is, as far west as you can go in texas and still be in texas. Were right in the middle of nafta countries east and west and north and south. Strategically we like to consider ourselves the gateway of trade between americas, onefifth of trades occurs through our six ports of entry in the region. Whats interesting, with all the uncertainty currently existing, in the world today, especially with respect to our bilateral relationship with mexico, make no mistake mexico is a strategy ally with the United States, we know this. Despite our uncertainty our organization has three functions, serve as the Economic Development and second, work as advocacy policy for the region and thirdly, were developing a strike plan to primarily focus on work force and policy we try to recruit to our region. Despite the uncertainty were seeing record levels of interests from companies, vetted progress in our region. Were moving up quickly, especially in the manufacturing sector. We in our region are now the fourth manufacturing hub in north america. In the last year to 18 months we surpassed detroit as being the fourth largest manufacturing hub in north america. Some 300,000 high paying jobs are created in our region. As i always say, our region should be a model how you create Economic Opportunity and secure the border and conduct bilateral relationships in a respectful honorable way. We certainly are very very proud of those statistics. Just two days ago it was announced el paso has record level low unemployment levels. We are at 3. 6 , prenafta. It was always hovering around the 1214 range. Our sister city, below 3 unemployment. That, of course, is leading to wage gains in a positive note, very measured positive way. So were very very happy with the developments thats occurring along the border. Were hopeful that as we deal not only with workforce issues, not only as we deal with these National Policy issues in washington we can finally reach a level of seniority, as has been mentioned, a theme ive heard from many panels today, chris, certainty is very very apparent for future development and Economic Opportunity. I use the mantra of saying that uncertainty is the enemy of jobs, Economic Growth and investment. To maximize that potential we all need to be working less on the macro level but on this panel need to be working very much on the local level to prepare ourselves for the jobs of the future, for a workforce trained and trainable. That is now the number one issue for Companies Looking to expand or relocate, do you have a trained or trainable workforce . Happy to say, i think i speak for all my colleagues here yankees not only does el paso and the borderplex region have that, most if not all the communities along the Southern Region offer that for Economic Development. For companies to expand and relocate and keep our competitive advantage in the region, i always emphasize, yes, we have that trained and trainable workforce and hope we can get into a discussion about some artificial limitors and artificial ceilings that exist and why we still have room to grow in our respective communities along the southern border. Once again thank you for inviting me here. Its an honor. Thank you, chris. Thank you all for being here, for this opportunity. Just a correction, i worked with the custom brokers. Ive been an advisor but i am not a custom broker. When ive seen what some of them go through because of mexican laws, minuscule error, that they lose their livelihood and sometimes their liberty, i would never want to be a custom broker. I worked with them 16 years in two areas. The last time i was over there four years, in charge of training for custom brokers and their personnel, i not only live at the border, i have a very strange story and will do it really short. I will mention it like this. I am a mexican born in canada and now is working in the United States. Up to a year ago, i had a son working in canada, a daughter working in the United States and a daughter working in mexico, so, when i go back and forth everyday so i know about the century lines and all of that. Anyway, just a couple of slides so we can get into a conversation, and as you all well know you need to use the microphone. Okay. Okay. As you all well know, the importance of our border ports of entry, this is just what texas represents for world trade. 30. 8 of all trade of the United States, with the world, crosses through laredo, 33. 9 through the custom district of laredo, the second largest in the country behind los angeles. 10. 7 el paso, 30. 7 houston galveston, 10. 1 in dallasfort worth and 5. 6 port arthur district. These slides, chris will have them so if anyone wants them we can send them to you. All these, you already know. This one is interesting. The share of trade between mexico and the United States, since 2012 to 2018 has been growing constantly. The share that we have that this last year, was 36. 9 through the city of laredo. I dont know if the mayor is still here. Another 14. 9 through the rest of the ports that are rio, the pass and all the way to brownsville. That gives us 52 of all u. S. Mexico trade to our district. 12. 5 here is trade through el paso. 19. 7 is trade through the other ports of entry and california and mexico and 15. 9 the rest of the ports of entry to the United States. This is u. S. Mexico trade, 1. 17 million a minute. Through all of these. Maybe this is interesting for some. Crime rates and ports of entry. United states, 394. This is fbi information out of every 100,000. Texas, 439, and down here you have laredo, 332, el paso, 379 and san diego, 367. At our border communities, we have the lowest crime rates in many parts. Dont get me talking about other cities like the one were in right now. This is just for information for you. If you want information, you can go to our website and we have for each of the four border states, we have all of the ports of entry. This is the information for the state, and then we have imports and exports for each and every one of the cities for your respective states. This information is here. You can download it and its constantly uploaded with recent data. Here are the commodities that cross through the bridge, through your ports of entry. Thats those are the slides i wanted to share. Maybe we can go into it. Great. Why dont i keep going with you for just a second, federico. When we talked during the process of creating the book chapter i was mentioning, you talked to me about how it was the city came together basically to build the world trade bridge. Laredo is, as you mentioned, the major really, the number one hub of u. S. Mexico trade. How is it the city developed that skillset . Obviously, someone like you in your own career sort of represented somebody teaching customs brokers how to do their job. Theres a lot of skill it takes to developing a logistics cluster that can be world class. How is it the city works to build a world trade bridge and develop that skillset in such a specialization facilitating trade . It has to do a lot with the origin and because of its geographic location, before nafta, it was a very important crossing point for trade. Nafta just blew up everything exponentially. We also have customs trade and Logistics Community that are very very proactive. Back in the 80s, before a lot of the things we take for granted on technology, mexico custom brokers who just returned after studying at mit, a couple of them, started working on ways of using computers to facilitate transmission of data. Were talking floppy disks. Then, they went over with the mexican set, mexican customs and they developed this system where everything was starting to go through computers. Even though at the beginning, it was once a week, when they took the disc to the bridge and then just downloaded everything, then, it was everyday and eventually, they got to develop it as a Pilot Project for all of mexico. That, with the fact a quarter of all mexican customers [ speaking spanish ]. And another quarter of those who have the rest of the ports of entry of mexico also have offices there. Thats something we can talk about later, the Economic Impact of that. The thing is because of these individuals who live and whose parents and grandparents live because of trade, they went full ahead on doing this. The thing that really changed everything was that they got together after a mayor, who was90s twice mayor the beginning and center of 90s. There was a long line of trailers that went through the middle of the city, in front of schools. There were so many accidents, i used to go to a school that had a cross this was in the 60s, it was then late 80s and early 90s, it was incredible. They came together with the custom brokers and transportation guys, and they put their money where their mouth was and they started financing the construction of the bridge because the Mexican Federal government didnt do it. They do keep the revenue of the tolls, and not as the case in laredo, the laredo, texas budget depends a lot on that. There was the political will and Economic Vision that they had to do something to get that traffic out of the city and make it faster. Thanks, frederico. One lesson is the coming together of the private sector with Public Sector to get things done. Sometimes getting things done even when the federal government isnt work something well. We hear again and again across the border, we local communities working to get things done and move out International Trade and really help out government when theyre experiencing challenges and facilitating that trade. Thats an important lesson. Jon, again, three different states that you represent. Some things we hear across the u. S. Mexico border, sometimes a local community on the u. S. Side of the border is competing with another local community on the u. S. Side of the border for investments, traffic, across bridges, things like that. How is it that an organization like yours is able to overcome some of those challenges . You represent three different groups of people that have elected officials with different sets of consistencies yet somehow you get everyone to see the value of cooperation over the possibility of competition. How does that develop . How do you talk to people so they see that value of cooperation . Thats a great question, chris. Certainly, a very relevant germane question. Ive had the unique opportunity to see it not only serving as a Public Servant in new mexico, as cabinet secretary, is there some competition, youre always trying to create jobs and what the taxpayers of new mexico expected me to do, and the governor. By the same token we know that the region we inhabit all rely on one another. The bottom line is that we indeed are a bicultural community that shares this same border, the same culture and, yes, we share the same economy. That last point is absolutely critical in overcoming some of the objections that maybe some more parochial political leaders might have about the region. To take a step back, when i did serve as cabinet secretary in new mexico, in 2011, it was interesting to say that the state of New Hampshire did more trade with mexico than new mexico did, as stunning as that might sound. We had to engage in a regional, certainly, when we were talking about workforce, when we were trying to draw businesses to this area, to the new mexico side of the border, we simply had to say and share resources, because we do have universities almost about 40 miles apart. The university of texas in el paso and new mexico state. We had to tell employers it was okay to hire graduates from u tech and viceversa now that im in this job we brag about the wonderful universities we have in the region. Combined, we have more University Students in the region than any big 10 community in the United States has, combined. Were graduating more engineers in our region than any big 10 community that has huge universities in the United States. These are the types of things that we all brag about, ought to talk about. The message has gotten out to Community Leaders and the Business Community has it and im working on a strike plan that will focus on wildfires development primarily and pulling resources together. The last thing i want to say about the issue, chris, the wildfires issue is very very critical, so is local infrastructure. David, who works in the free trade zone, in the audience, is emblammatic how we have to cooperate when it comes to things like transportation. Every state has to work within the transportation infrastructure in our region or things will come grinding to a halt. Before that over 2 billion worth of investment on just the u. S. Side on the border is occurring in new mexico and texas, 2 billion, keeping ahead of growth, making sure we have this competitive flow of trade and at the same time, securing the border, frankly, and the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. All of these are contributing to overcoming the objectives. Were working very very well together, especially private seccer to and government sector how we move our entire region forward. This is not a zero sum game. A job created in one place ought to be a job created in the u. S. Thats how we approach it. When we did this study i mentioned earlier, the way we started it was about what trade was moving through the region and started seeing where are there opportunities to attract suppliers and Different Industries that might fit in the supply chain moving through the greater brownsville area. Could you talk about what industries do you all target . What are the conversations like when talking to potential investors . What are the things theyre asking you and youre pointing out to them that resonate the most when you try to land the companies in those industries . Its very complicated, the question. I think different communities across the border deal with it differently. In brownsville to laredo, probably, region. Years ago, in the times of the heavy involvement or movement, to today, we didnt have a true assessment or inventory of whats the percent of types of industries there . Are they tech or automotive, energy . Now that we have some Manufacturing Associations working together and sharing data on both sides of the border us on Economic Development can better assess what kind of package and incentives package can we put together to entice a company, say an Automotive Company we can give you logistics costs because we have automotive t1 or t2 and we can help with the profitability to bring them in. Before, we were saying pie in the sky. We want more jobs but dont know how to attract these companies. I think were Getting Better at that as we share data across borders and the towns. I can tell you not the two is coming around and hopefully gets ratified soon, theres still different investment from Different Countries and regions and we see a lot of hesitation again. The rules is an issue and hopefully works on our behalf and betterment of the region. The tariffs are also conversations when they come see us about hows that going to work, right . The unique condition in brownsville. We have a port, we have brownsville msa that can probably mitigate a lot of that tax and tariffs through opportunity zones and the like. I tell tell you recently in the last two months, the gentleman here brought it up earlier, is the first question they asked was security. Some people around the world and other parts of the country think its a war zone around the border and its not. Brownsville is the number two safety city in texas, number 13th in the country. Laredo is a very safe community. El paso, mcallen, all, depending what websites you look at, essentially very safe communities, right . Thats something we never had to entertain before as an Economic Development organization. This is very safe. And the Workforce Development component is very important. I did a lot of work with toyota and my charge with toyota was help us find a profitability window sooner based on wildfires development strategies, right . Based on Workforce Development strategies, right . If its hightech, can build a quality product. If your cfo and manufacturers target so much production a day or month or year they should be able to make profit this much a year and therefore can project, i can make my money back, investment back in 10 years, right . When you have a weak workforce that cant solve problems, supposed to have 1,000 trucks a day but because of problems, making 700 n. Those are profitability problems. And now we have data with companies coming into our region, we know what to do. We have the Human Capital. Come to us, were ready for business, the border is. Another point i like to make, although we see a lot of investments in the port of entry we just saw, in my opinion, it benefits a lot of interior of the United States and not border region. It created a lot of passthrough region, a lot of produce coming through the port or border region. Its important to regionally Work Together to understand these numbers better so we can help reflect this investment in our communities. Federico, that was one of the things we talked, laredo did why i started with the question what did laredo do right recently, attract trade through the community and the community lives on that trade, but maybe missed an opportunity to attract manufacturers and others. Can you address what is missing that didnt have laredo develop in the same way as other communities on the border . I mentioned in mexico there are 880 custom brokers and 200 work in their headquarters and another 200 operate another location. And all of whom have operations on the u. S. Side from brownsville to san antonio. 400 plus, just in laredo. On the mexico border 67 of mexicocustom brokers have their headquarters on the border cities. I have tried to do it with thought, some time ago, could that be considered a Foreign Direct Investment from mexicans and the United States, because theyre creating jobs, paying taxes, theyre building warehouses and they have from custom brokers businesses to transportations to boutiques and restaurants, they diversified. What could have been done with respect to manufacturing, a lot. The thing is that i ive mentioned it before and thinking of some people dont like it, that we take for granted trade is always going to cross through laredo. They never thought about a second economic location for the city. Thats it. 90 plus percent of the workforce is services. That is something that we missed. 1988, in laredo, we had an event, and we were trying to attract businesses from all around to invest there, and most of them went to renos or el paso or tijuana. Everyone was fine with that because trade was still number one. That was prenafta. We could have done a lot. I still think that norms volume of trade and accommodates, enormous volume, but that is something that just maybe. Thats one of the things we hear all the time, how it is that how can communities add more value in the supply chains theyre a part of. I think related to that is what is the unique Value Proposition of being a community along the border going out to attract business. Jon, can you come in on this and talk about how you framed that Value Proposition working and investing along the border. I think if i remember you talked about some investments coming in that required a bilingual workforce for example or moving back to creation where you do have some level of joint manufacturing happening on both sides of the border, spillover effects on the manufacturing side of things. Talk about how you approach that and special value of a border company. There are countless advantages to being along the southern border with mexico. I think all of our communities, and especially in our region, we have one of the youngest demographics of any msa metropolitan statistical area on both sides of the border. We have that trained and trainable young dynamic workforce. We talk about that. We have strike advantages we offer for direct foreign investors. 15 years ago, i saw in my prior job, my prior life, that china, make no mistake, china is a trade foe. They are going through a very difficult tile right now, in terms of their workforce, and really, in my humble opinion, theyre becoming less and less repetitive. The trend was shoring the american jobs. When youre looking at fdi, especially from asia, i think our communities and the borderplex region has a very very come spelling story to tell when it comes to reshoring of these jobs from asia. Make no mistake, that trend, i think, will continue. Why . In china you have rising wages, you have very expensive utility costs there. You have a very unpredictable political system, and finally, you see a situation where transportation costs are rising. But most of all, the quality of the chinese products do not compare to the quality of products being made in america and new mexico and the United States. For that reason, i think you will see that trend continue. And mexico and the United States. We should be the place of choice for reshoring of these jobs. Make no mistake, hundreds of thousands of these jobs are coming and coming soon, tariffs or no tariffs against the chinese. We need in our region to be able to tell that story and make sure that we are in the forefront of telling that story, not only in the borderplex region but in our sister communities up and down the border. Were happy to do that. The last thing ill say about it, in order to stay competitive we have to make sure were staying ahead of infrastructure once again. You heard that today a lot as a theme. If the federal government wont take the lead the states and communities need to, like the state of texas is doing and local leaders in el paso, to make sure our road system and everything from roads to water. By the way, i have to compliment our water authority, Public Service board. What they have done in el paso is providing and making sure there is a sustainable and very very viable amount of water, with conservation, to last for several more decades. What theyre doing there is incredible. There is that perception, too, at least in el paso, we dont have enough water, yes, we do. We can tell all that story and do it in a forceful compelling way, you know what . We win these projects more often than not and were defeating places like phoenix and other spots in other communities. I love beating phoenix. I love beating communities there might be somebody from phoenix here. So be it, friendly competition, right . Always comes down to the same communities vying for these fdi projects, it seems, at least in my experience. We had some very very good fortune being competitive. Last thing i will say proof of the pudding, we are finalists for very large significant projects because weve been able to proffer these advantages and competing with cities more inland in the United States, so very happy to report we may not win any of them, but god willing we won maybe all of them. Thank you. We have time for a couple questions before we finish up here. Anybody have one they want to throw out here . Heres one. Let me give you a microphone, if you could identify yourself. Ask the question. Thats okay. If you could wait for the microphone. He preempted me on the water. I dont know if there were specific things you want too mention how this works. You know you have enough water. Theyre doing something innovative, i assume . Yeah. The water in the tristate area is very very interesting, a little complex legally. As a recovering lawyer i went try to explain it, made complex by interstate water compact. Ill leave it there. We have to comply with not only the International Compacts we have with mexico but we also have to comply with interstate water contacts. That being said, what the psb and Public Service board has done is not only buy additional water rights, they emphasized number one, its the Worlds Largest inland desalle linization plant they have. We have almost countless amount of brackish water in the area and in the region. One end is technology and foresight and making sure we have enough water rights in the region. The second is a very aggressive Water Conservation effort throughout all three states, really. The combination of which has been a very powerful story to tell. Luckily, were in the situation were in right now because of that. Thank you. Can i add to that . That point . Its not just about acquiring water, how can communities smartly use the water, especially from an Economic Development perspective. When i was at toyota we used 1. 3 million gallons of water a day. A company wont come into your region if they dont have water for the manufacturing process, oftentimes its large amounts. How the municipalities utilize their water not only for population, use water for frackish, whatever, so that they can accommodate the needs of industry for Economic Development. Thank you. Another question here. Maybe, if you dont mind, collect a couple of questions and will be the final round. Hi. My name is marie. Youve been talking about investment and the striategic plan. I was wondering if there is anything about investment and local scale businesses or any program or idea on maybe having them from both of the sides Work Together as small and medium services, i mean, businesses or entrepreneurship programs, projects, things like that. Thank you. Thanks. Mario brought up a point about misconceptions they were dangerous on the border. I heard five or six senators and 16 congressman say its a crisis on the border, they paint this broad brush. How many people dont call making their decision based on the news and what can we do to counter that . Lets finish it up. Jared, did you want to jump in before the next question . Jerry. I wanted to ask mario, actually, all three of you all, understanding the challenges we have of our youth in the border communities, we have the asset of a bicultural environment, how far back do you identify back to tap into the young men and boys and girls . At what level should we be working on to prepare them for what 25 years from now the usa may look like . I actually did that study in san antonio recently. I set it up for you, buddy. I will give you five bucks later, jerry. I use the football analogy. You have a professional quarterback and look at the recruiting for a professional quarterback, they probably recruited out of a lot of tier 1 schools and tier 2 schools and those schools recruited out of a lot of schools and those schools recruited out of high schools and those schools prepare smaller teams, all that to get one quarterback. We did the math what does it take to get one technician to fix robots. 200,000 touches of people. We took it down to middle school. We think that from an Economic Development perspective and capitalizing on Human Capital need to really start investing through some sort of legislation in your communities to create programs at the middle school to prepare them for technology in high school and get them into a job, career phase right after high school. Typically in hightech environments, 510 require a four year degree, make no mistake about it. If everybody wants to get a four year degree its fine, wont get hired by industry. Typically 8020 rule and 80 require High School Diploma and 20 four year degree. We think the middle school is the sweet spot. Lightning round, let me try to answer all three questions. Innovation. We have incubators in tech hubs in several cities. Were working to develop a seamless pipeline and especially technology, really, giving entrepreneurs in the hightech space every tool they possibly can have. El paso is becoming a really hip place for young hispanics. The Downtown Revitalization is attracting young hispanic millennials, cool place gs to e and have a good time and concerts. Were starting to attract the high talent. We got a Silicon Valley to move to el paso. Only expected to hire 40 and looks like they will move their denver operation to el paso because they had success and attention rate off the charts. Mayor, thank you, thats exactly right, the artificial limit or two optimizing job growth in our region. I probably speak for everybody here you have to get past the perception of our region being a dangerous, violent and lawless frontier. Its perpetuated in pop culture and now politics. Thats an additional thing we have to overcome to optimize job growth in the area. Once we can show the data, el paso second safest city over 500,000 in the United States. That chart, second safe over 500,000, number one, by a fraction of a point, san diego, not really close but a sister city on the border. Finally, workforce, yes, we need to continue to emphasize Work Force Development not only innovation and tech sector. Lets not forget about the basic sector that has sustained our area in many parts of the border, warehousing, transportation, logistics and manufacturing sector. Those sectors are continuing to grow and will continue to grow, at least in our region. We need make sure we have trades people, we have electricians and other folks like that, high paying jobs, Truck Drivers, welders. We cant forget about that as far as our Workforce Development needs. I would also quick, first of all, Strategic Plan you mentioned, that is something that has to be done. Right here, we worked on a long term vision plan to 20 out for, like 8, 9 years ago. In 2015 we did an update. Laredo did a comprehensive plan and another thing is bring it together because both plans consider a long term vision, developing infrastructure, developing workforce. That is something we should probably all along the border do. Collaborating and not so much competing with one another. The thing about the perception, you already mentioned there, we need provide hard cold facts to those who are who need them. Its practically impossible to fight media pop culture and politics who have an agenda, but we need to have that information out there first on our forefront. Finally, regarding the workforce, we need to require our students to adapt, be flexible, be lifelong learners and something we should probably do. Things are changing so fast if we dont prepare students to be have the availability and vision to work they wont do it. Finally for the future id like to give a shoutout to jerry and ibc and everyone because we need that type of engagement and commitment to the north american freetrade agreement and mca and development of the border and theyve done it magnificently. I want to second that. I see jerry everywhere around these road trips and his friend, eddie. Thank you for what you do. I hope you all have enjoyed this panel and all the panels throughout the day as much as i have. It hes been a fantastic day and you helped with our understanding of the border regions. We need to get out there more from washington and we will keep doing the work from the Wilson Center and keep engaging you in that work. Its important from us. I want to thank our sponsors for helping make the day possible and hand things over to close it out for the day. [ applause ] thank you, chris. On behalf of the border trade alliance, we want to say thank you again to duncan wood, chris, and the team here at the center of the mexico institute. Its a pleasure too partner with you for our sixth conference. I want to thank the Board Members for their leadership. We had a very productive day today as thanks to all of you and mentioning our sponsors, ibc, how great your work is and appreciate Constellation Brands for helping our reception last night and to angela at the Wilson Center for your help at the Reception Center last night and also to ct strategies. Were at a critical juncture. Weve been talking about it all day, seeking the modernization of our trilateral trade agreement. We will remain focused and we will remain engaged and hopefully get this agreement done this year. So just yesterday the bta board, we were on capitol hill, sharing much of the message we talked about today. We feel like we are gaining traction, and we will get there. The bta members and i do look forward to continuing to build on the success of nafta for the past 25 years, not anything negative. And ratifying the usmca. Thank you for your leadership and thanks for your support. Lets continue to fight the good fight and win together. [ applause ] heres a look at some of our Live Campaign coverage coming up. Friday, South Carolina congressman, jim clyburn holds his annual fish fry at the state capitol, host mortgage than 20 democratic president ial candidates at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Sunday, senator Bernie Sanders holds a town hall at Clinton College in rock hill, South Carolina, live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. A reminder you can follow our coverage online at cspan. Org and the cspan radio app. Join American History tv sunday, when we mark the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots, a key turning point of the gay rights movement. Were live with a story of mark steyn, editor of the zonewall riots, tweets and history and the monument in new yorks green itch village. Two gay rights films by activist, lily vansens and then also the second largest minority. We are homosexual human beings and homosexual human citizens. Everybody always remembers the first words and conveniently overlooks the second words, american citizens and human beings. Followed by the 1970s film, gay and proud. Tell us how you feel about being here today . Beautiful. How many years have you been a homosexual . I was born a homosexual. Has it given you proud . I was sad to see there was not some politician here with us today. I believe mensually should have been here today as possibly some of the gai organizers themselves. Watch the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots, on American History tv. I kind of view political cartooning almost like advertising on television. You have about five seconds to capture the viewers attention. Another five seconds to deliver the point or sell the product. The only difference is with television, youre selling a product, with political cartoon, youre selling an idea. Sunday, two time pulitzer cartoonist, Michael Ramirez and his political cartoons. I have to say the clintons are my favorite political family and won my first pulitzer in 1994 on the back of that administration. When you take a caricature of somebody in politics, youre changing the dynamics of their features not only to make them into a cartoon but show the dynamics of their personality as well. Sunday, 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Congressional leaders were at the white house this afternoon for a closed door briefing on iran following the downing of a u. S. Drone by irans revolutionary guard. President trump spoke briefly about the situation earlier today while meeting with canadian Prime Minister, justin trudeau, in the oval office. Well, thank you very much. We had some good news. The market hit an all time high today, the s p just broke its record, so were very happy about that. The stock market continues to do