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A $272 billion debate
Every day a flurry of parts and products are shuttled between Texas and Mexico, part of a cross-border supply chain to make everything from cars and heavy duty machinery to flat screen televisions.
But as reporter James Osborne writes the future of that partnership, built over decades, is now in question under President Donald Trump's threat to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada beginning Saturday.
While communities around the country would likely see higher prices — on everything from avocados to electronics — the stakes are particularly high for border states like Texas. In 2023, trade between Texas and Mexico exceeded $272 billion, making it the state's largest trading partner.
Canadian and Mexican officials are working to secure an agreement with the new Trump administration to avoid the tariffs, but the threat is enough to drive anxiety on both sides of the border. Trump has threatened to impose the tariffs if Mexico and Canada don't take unspecified steps to stop the flow of migrants and illegal drugs into the United States.
"The level of economic integration related to trade between the two countries is profound," said Antonio Garza, a former Texas politician who served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico under former president George W. Bush and now works as an attorney in Mexico City. "It's hard to find an aspect of our livelihoods that isn't touched someway somehow, from the food we eat to the cars we drive. And the prospect of tariffs is very real."
What exactly those tariffs would look like remains unclear.
Much more on it all here.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
Up: Tuskegee Airmen.
After provoking an uproar by shutting down a course that taught recruits about the famed Tuskegee Airmen and a unit of pioneering female aviators, the Air Force said the subject matter would be restored immediately to its basic training curriculum. As the Express-News first reported, the training program was halted last week so officials could review it to make sure it complied with President Donald Trump's executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, an Air Force official said. "DEI material" not permitted under Trump's order was removed from the course, but the historical videos will remain, the official said.
Down: Alternative energy.
With data centers, artificial intelligence, extreme weather and population growth creating a voracious appetite for power across Texas, Republicans in the Texas Legislature have filed bills that would create new hurdles for the battery, solar and wind projects needed to carry the load. Reporter Sara DiNatale details how there are already 121 operating battery storage generators in Texas with more than 150 planned for the next five years.
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: KAC Productions
Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the state is still trying to use portions of an $8 billion settlement with BP to rehabilitate damaged shorelines. Reporter Liz Teitz says state and federal agencies want to use $40 million for seven projects that would use dredged material from waterways and canals and other sources to ultimately restore up to 1,927 acres of marsh along the coast in places like Matagorda, Calhoun and Aransas counties.
What else I'm reading
Louisiana last year passed a law to ban cell phone use in public schools statewide and two weeks ago Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders used her State of the State address to vow to ban cell phones "bell to bell, so that our kids are not distracted, in class or out of it," according to the Texarkana Gazette. Some in Texas have kicked around a similar idea. State Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, has introduced legislation this session that would require schools to draft policies that would require students to turn off and store phones during the school day. Violations could result in parents having to pay $15 to get those phones back.
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