On the recordDecember 5, 2023
Mr. President, I am here today to discuss worrying developments in Mexico, one of the United States' most important international partners and our neighbor to the south. The nearly 2,000-mile border that our nations share both binds us together and presents a series of challenges, including illegal migration, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. As we work through those difficult issues, our robust economic relationship has provided a firm foundation to strengthen and stabilize our efforts with an eye toward the future. The innovative United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, deepened the connections between our economies such that Mexico is now one of our largest and most strategic trading partners. However, actions over the past 2 years by the government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have weakened that bond and are threatening the economic and diplomatic ties between our nations. Through increasingly arbitrary and aggressive moves against companies based here in the United States and their lawfully owned assets in Mexico, the Mexican Government has abused its permitting and regulatory powers in ways that violate the letter and the spirit of our trade agreements, not to mention the special relationship historically enjoyed between our two countries. These decisions directly impact critical sectors of the U.S. economy from agriculture to energy and mining and from transportation to tourism.…
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