In a recent story in the Phoenix Business Journal, Steve Zylstra, president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council, writes about how our recent report The USMCA and Its Impact on Arizona, which was developed by the North American Research Partnership and the Crossborder Group and supported by the Arizona Chamber Foundation, Arizona-Mexico Commission and Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, underscores the impacts the USMCA trade agreement would have on Arizona.
Below is an excerpt from that article published on April 10, 2019. Read the full story here.
The news cycle has shifted back to the U.S.-Mexico border over the past week for a number of reasons. But if you’re like me, the focus on the significance of the border never wavered as we’ve been awaiting resolution on the proposed U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
What the business community thought was a sure thing leaves many likely feeling not so sure as the long-awaited congressional vote on the deal appears to be getting lost in the Washington rhetoric. A newly published briefing underscores so much remains at stake for Arizona.
The latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate our state had $20.4 billion in total trade with USMCA markets in 2018. On average between 2015 and 2017, Arizona exported $10.5 billion annually to these two critical markets. The value of goods exported to Mexico and Canada from Phoenix metropolitan regional companies alone, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, increased from $1.7 billion in 2005 to an average of $4.9 billion each year in the same period.
Add to that the impact on employment. The report cited a newly released study produced for the Business Roundtable estimating more than 228,300 net jobs in Arizona resulted from trade with Canada and Mexico in 2017, excluding payrolls from Mexico- and Canada-originating tourism to Arizona.