Although plummeting oil prices affected overall commerce between the US and Mexico during the last calendar year, advances were registered in other areas of the relationship.

The leadership of two NAFTA partners meets to review 2015

During last week’s High Level Economic Dialogue between the United States and Mexico, the US vice president, Joe Biden, praised the mostly growing commerce between the US and Mexico, as well as pointed out that from 2009-2014 the exchange in goods and services between the two NAFTA partners grew by seventy-five percent. During the same period US trade with China, by contrast, grew at a lesser rate of sixty-one percent.

Although the drastic reductions that occurred over the course of the last year that, in part, resulted in total commerce between the US and Mexico see a reduction of approximately US $3.2 billion, other areas registered significant gains. First and foremost in this category was the automotive industry which saw a positive incremental change of US $16 billion by itself. Other gains were made in:

transportation equipment, which registered an uptick of just under US $2 billion;
telecommunications equipment and related devices, of which bilateral purchases and sales rose US $2.5 billion;

Some sectors registered gains despite falling oil prices

Other products that evidenced sufficient gains in volume of trade and commerce between the United State and Mexico include flat television screens, medical devices, and some agricultural items. Also, again in the automotive industry, US car companies saw their sales in Mexico increase by US $1.2 billion, while a similar gain was made in sales of US made aerospace equipment to Mexican buyers.

The US-Mexico border sees the largest daily exchange of goods and services between any two neighboring countries in the world. During each twenty-four hour period, fifteen thousand tractor trailers cross both north and southbound border checkpoints. This movement represents a daily exchange in commerce between the United States and Mexico of six hundred million dollars.

Trade between the United States and Mexico is not a zero sum game. Each side benefits in terms of greater access to an exchange in a wider variety of goods. During last week’s High Level Economic Dialogue, vice president, Joe Biden, noted that “for have of his country’s fifty states, Mexico is the leading commercial partner.”