LAREDO, Texas - The president of IBC Bank says too many people in the United States do not understand the dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico border.
At a reception his bank hosted during the recent Pathways for Trade Symposium, Dennis E. Nixon urged attendees of the event to go back to their communities and educate people about life on the border. He called those at the symposium the doers and the thinkers.
“People do not understand the dynamics of the border. We are constantly fighting an uphill battle with intrusion and what I would call illiteracy about the border. People do not understand what is really going on,” Nixon said.
“I do not know how many people I have talked to who have no idea that there is a billion worth of trade crossing the border every day and that all these thousands of trucks and all these people are working to gain a quality of life and grow the economies of both countries.”
According to the Laredo Economic Development Corporation, which hosted the symposium, Laredo ranks No. 3 Custom District in the U.S. by value of shipment, and generates over $303 Billion in international trade. In addition, the Port of Laredo is the nation’s Number One land border gateway by value of imports and exports, ranking first in the nation in 2018, transported across the border by highways, railroads and pipelines.
Indeed, in this past March, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the Port Laredo's trade was $20.09 billion while trade through the Los Angeles port's was $19.66 billion. For that one month, Laredo surpassed Los Angeles as the No. 1 port in the nation.
Nixon said the impact of international trade needs to be broadcast across the country.
“Unfortunately, when you get away from the border you lose the intensity and the importance of trade. Once you go beyond the Nueces River, all international business and international thinking stops and you become just like the rest of the country, you do not realize the importance of trade and how much the prosperity of America has benefited from trade,” Nixon said.
“Trade has been one of the strong elements of our society, very few people really know that much about it and understand cross-border activity.”
Nixon said he felt blessed to land in Laredo early in his banking career. He said he has watched Laredo “become the epicenter for trade.” He said the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed into law 25 years ago, has been the catalyst for the growth.
Currently, Congress is considering upgrading NAFTA through the ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“Hopefully Congress will pass that legislation and get on with it and put some of this political toxicity behind us and go on and do the right thing for America, and the workers and businesses that we need to continue to grow,” Nixon said.
Nixon said border residents understand the importance of trade and free enterprise.
“I can remember 25 years ago when Laredo was a sleepy little town with not much going on. We were in the beginning stages of trade growth with GATT and the World Trade Association. We saw the evidence of trade growth and what it can do for the community. We had 13, 14, 15 percent unemployment, now they are down to the national and state levels, totally due to the efforts that have gone on with trade.”
Nixon said IBC Bank has the data to prove “trade does produce the results we want in society.” He said NAFTA not only helped reduce unemployment but also added to the upward mobility of border residents.
“There was no way out of that malaise of poverty and no job opportunities in those days. Now, not only do we have low unemployment, we have the opportunity to grow and achieve job opportunity and higher levels of income than we ever thought possible in Laredo,” Nixon said.
“We do business from Del Rio down to Brownsville. We get to see first hand all the activity, the hundreds of thousands of people that cross the border every day and the trucks and the traffic that goes on and all the things that happen.”
Nixon said border communities must “come together and fight hard” to get USMCA passed. That means calling members of Congress to urge ratification of the treaty. This must happen, he said, because the stakes are high.
“Nothing is for sure any more in the world today. We do not have the political leadership in the world, in my opinion, to do the things necessary. We have doubts about our leadership in Mexico. We have doubts about our leadership in America. We have doubts about our leadership around the world and so everything could fall apart,” Nixon said.
“I guess everybody thinks, no it could never happen to us. We could never have these problems. But we can. And so we really ought to be on our guard with our “A” game over the next several years to make sure that we do stay focused on building quality of life through business and entrepreneurship, free trade and free enterprise.”
Nixon reiterated that free enterprise is the “solid base” upon which economies sustain themselves.
“Governments cannot provide that. People working hard every day is what provides that. I am a free enterprise person and I believe governments should step back as much as they can and stay out of the way,” he said.
Nixon concluded his remarks by lamenting government intrusion into the world of banking.
“I say in most of my speeches that we live in a permission society now and we do not have control of our future. Everything we want to do today, we have to get permission from some form of government to do it. Local government putting some control in place, state government putting some control in place, and the federal government putting some control in place. All of them dysfunctional, working not in tandem but with their own agenda so that they all cross and they all collide,” Nixon said.
“I have been in the banking business for over 50 years. In the old days, people could come into my office, tell their story, I could listen to it. We could create an answer for them in the moment they were there and the money could be in their bank account before they left the bank. That just does not happen any more, because of all the rules and all the regulations and all the controls, all the defensive mechanisms to prevent one individual, one outlier who causes all these problems all the time. We stop everybody for the sake of one person doing something bad.”
Nixon said trade is an entrepreneurial and an innovative thinking kind of a process.
“If we do not open the doors and provide that mechanism it will not flourish. Globalization is here but it can stop. Nationalism takes over and we get back to these border skirmishes, we start building walls, as we have here, and we impede people’s progress. With trade comes people’s movements and you have got to deal with both. A lot of times we do not deal holistically with the issues that result in needing to move people back and forth as well as goods and services.”
