Made in USMCA: Kansas and Missouri benefit when North America works together
The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement — the renewed trade agreement among Mexico, the United States and Canada — matters to Kansas and Missouri. It openly recognizes and bolsters the essential role that underrepresented populations — regional production workers in greater Kansas City, Wichita and St. Louis — play in the competitiveness and prosperity of North America.
The future of free trade with Mexico, the United States and Canada will certainly be cemented not only in the countries' considerable number of commercial transactions, the scale of their supply chains and the growing understanding among economic stakeholders. It is also possible because the governments of each North American partner remained resolute in fostering the advancement of this region as the most competitive in the world, even in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
During his visit to Washington, D.C., on July 8, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave a compelling speech on this issue from the White House Rose Garden. He pointed out that in 1970, North America constituted 40.4% of the world’s gross domestic product, whereas today the region’s share in global GDP has shrunk to 27.8%.
With a network of 50 consular offices across the United States, Mexico has been actively promoting its importance as a reliable partner in North America. There has also been a big effort to emphasize the need to keep building on NAFTA’s success story, by improving and modernizing our shared agreements.
How important is our commercial partnership? Last June, some regions and sectors in the U. S. began to reopen. Because most activities in Mexico remained shut down, our countries were faced with the need identify, align and agree on the best ways to keep highly integrated industries running. The automobile sector and manufacturers of medical and personal protection equipment were good examples of this. Our countries also had to find a precise balance between preserving the flow of essential goods through our common border while limiting non-essential travel to avoid COVID-19 propagation.
Underscoring the importance of our common relationship, Mexico has been fortunate to strengthen and establish agreements with different actors. Examples of this have been the dialogues with federal representatives, state legislators, governors, chambers of commerce, businesses and civil societies in Kansas and Missouri.
It has not been an easy task. I personally remember that in April 2017, weeks before the official start of NAFTA renegotiations, I was approached by agriculture producers in the heartland. They asked whether they were at risk of losing their share in Mexico’s export market to Argentina or Brazil because of possible U.S. termination of the North American trade agreement.
Talks on tariffs and trade negotiations, as well as their impact in the daily life of Kansans and Missourians, opened up new outreach opportunities. An example of this has been the annual visit, three years in row, of Kansas Corn Collegiate Academy students and faculty to the Consulate of Mexico in Kansas City. I have been honored to discuss trade issues with future agriculture professionals interested in learning more about how Mexico and the U.S. produce together.
Now that the USMCA is working in force, the diplomatic and consular network of Mexico in North America has teamed up with Secretariat of Economy to convey a clear and compelling message throughout the diverse economic regions of the U.S. and Canada. Beyond the outcome of our trade negotiations, local stakeholders should rest assured that certainty — including a robust dispute resolution mechanism — will be the main trait of our new agreement. Greater competitiveness and new opportunities for workers, manufacturers, small and medium businesses, industries and underrepresented groups in our countries will continue to grow.
The USMCA is the result of a complex yet rich process of negotiations. For instance, when the opportunity arose, both Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas and Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri urged their respective congressional delegations to pass this new North American agreement to preserve the economic vitality of key sectors. The agriculture, transportation and airspace industries, among others, created a combined 130,000-plus jobs in both states, and they depend on trade with Mexico.
At the local level, stakeholders all across the board in Wichita, St. Louis and Kansas City remained very attentive to the trilateral negotiations. Between 2005 and 2017, the Wichita metropolitan area supplied an average of 42% of all Kansas’ exports under NAFTA, and exports from greater Kansas City grew 61% during the same period.
Productive, mutually beneficial relationships between national, regional and local economies is where the fundamentals of our North American partnership are robustly cemented.
Alfonso Navarro-Bernachi is Head Consul of Mexico in Kansas City.
This story was originally published August 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Made in USMCA: Kansas and Missouri benefit when North America works together."