Originally Posted: January 31, 2017
The Texas economy is already pretty great, and Mexico is one of the key reasons.
That’s worth remembering when President Donald Trump threatens a trade war over a border wall, as he did last week. Economically, there’s more at stake for Texas than any other state in the country.
Mexico is our most important trading partner by far. In 2015, Texas exported over $92 billion in goods to Mexico, which was more than it exported to the next 10 countries combined. Texas imports from Mexico were almost as high and were twice as high as from China, next on the list.
Perhaps the most impressive number: Texas exports supported over 1 million jobs in 2015, according to government estimates.
That’s almost 50 percent more export jobs than in much larger California. And that’s more jobs than in some of Texas’ major employment sectors, including construction, manufacturing, financial activities and local education.
“Mexico is a huge part of the Texas success story,” said James Hollifield, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “The Texas economy stands to be hit hard by Trump’s policies.”
It’s still unclear how Trump will try to build a wall along the Mexican border and how it will be paid for. Last week, he floated the idea of a 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports. After it was pointed out that Americanconsumers would pay such a border tax, administration officials said it was one of several funding possibilities. READ MORE