On the recordJanuary 12, 2017
It is Thursday evening in the House of Representatives, and I continue to hear friends, fellow Members of the House, and reporters in anguish over the issue of a potential wall between the United States and Mexico; so I thought it was worth looking at some information about Mexico--our closest neighbor to the south. The data should be recent. They have got nearly 120 million people in Mexico. The gross domestic product is around 2.1 trillion in pesos. They have 2.1 percent growth-- terrible. It is about like the Obama economy. The average income is around $17,000 per capita. Inflation is 4.0 percent. Yet, you look at the economics of Mexico in the world, and you think, wow. You look at their resources--extraordinary resources, just extraordinary resources. We know they have got hardworking people because we know, from the people of Mexico who have come to the United States, that people constantly indicate, gee, they are the best workers we have, these hardworking folks from Mexico. So you have got hardworking people in the nation of Mexico, and you have got incredible natural resources that have never been tapped--or not adequately tapped. We don't even know the full potential--oil, gas, copper. There are all of these different minerals that Mexico is supposed to have. You look at what people have done over the thousands of years--I mean, advanced civilizations. Why is Mexico not one of the top 10 or even top five economies in the world?…
