On the border - The Economist:

‘Laredo, on America’s southern border, does not look like a crown jewel. The Texan city of 250,000 people appears more like a dusty trading outpost in the middle of nowhere. Sure, it has a quaint centre. Laredo dates back to 1755, making it older than the United States—though for part of its history it was almost as poor (and not nearly as much fun) as Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican town just across the Rio Grande. Yet since the covid-19 pandemic, it has become a shining symbol of American commerce. This is expected to be the first year when the value of goods passing through Laredo eclipses that of any other port in America—even that of mighty Los Angeles, where stuff is shipped in from China.
Laredo’s trade is lubricated by axle grease. Every day about 20,000 lorries trundle back and forth across its two trade bridges, transporting everything from cars to chewing gum. Commerce is booming. The value of imports and exports passing through the inland port rose by 8% between January and October, year on year. That bucks the trend in other ports, such as LA, where trade has declined. Because of bilateral trucking restrictions, all that cargo has to be transferred between American and Mexican drivers, requiring 43m square feet (4m square metres) of warehousing—an area bigger than Manhattan’s Central Park. Investment is pouring in. Over the next two years, the city is expected to add another 10m square feet of warehouse space. It is daunting to think about. The number of lorries is already so large that tailbacks can stretch almost ten miles (16km) into Mexico.’

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‘Héctor Cerna, the BTA’s treasurer, says knee-jerk policies related to illegal migration have hit the supply of vegetables to American supermarkets, Corona beer to distributors, car parts to companies like General Motors and Nissan, and refrigerators to firms like Whirlpool. “It’s self-inflicted pain,” he says.’

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‘Yet the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, wants to strong-arm Mexico to do more to halt the wave of migrants trying to enter America. Under his orders, a state law-enforcement agency is imposing random safety checks on vehicles that have already passed US customs, creating long queues. The result is spoilage and ruined just-in-time delivery schedules. The costs are passed on to consumers.’

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‘No one yet knows whether Donald Trump, the most likely Republican contender (and wall-builder-in-chief), will proceed with his ruinous plan to slap a 10% levy on all imports to America. But, by 2026, whoever leads the government will oversee a sexennial review of the USMCA, an update to NAFTA signed by America, Canada and Mexico in 2020. Given its importance to the trio’s economies, it will probably survive. But opponents to free trade with Mexico, such as Florida’s fruit growers, are already lobbying for a trade war.
The threats to cross-border trade are, of course, not just American-made. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican president, has committed his own act of sabotage by imposing state control over the energy industry, which discourages firms from relocating to Mexico. He has militarised the border, putting oversight of trade into the hands of soldiers with little customs experience. Lawlessness is another hindrance.’

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‘Testament to their optimism is Laredo’s love of bridges. It hopes shortly to increase the number from four to five, with a new trade bridge built by a public-private partnership. Mexico has given the green light. But officials in Washington are stalling on permit approval. There the focus is squarely on walls.’

Read the article here.

‘There is something about border crossings that breeds insanity in elected officials.’

If you want to understand what’s happening in Europe and in the US, keep this sentence in mind.

Think also of Brexit. In the fruitless fight to control migration elected officials are more than willing to sabotage free trade, which lost most of its glamour anyhow.
We go back to isolationism , trade wars and institutionalized distrust.

Also, both lawlessness and the deployment of soldiers at the border produce chaos, violence and delays.
The people want bread, games and walls.