Trade Mission to Mexico

October 5, 2017

Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and CEO, Glenn Hamer interview with Bloomberg.

Market Freedom Alliance
Trade Mission to Mexico
August 22- August 25

Arizona Representative Tony Rivero invited representatives from Market Freedom Alliance to a trade mission in Mexico. The mission was punctuated with a series of meetings with Mexican government officials, including Senator Juan Carlos Romero Hicks and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray, as well as business leaders, including Jorge Vallejo, the Director of Exports, Institutional Relations and International Affairs for Nissan’s Leaf division and corporate public relations expert Magdalena Carral. Private sector attendance also included representatives from the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association, and Chicanos Por La Causa. The University of Arizona and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University were also represented.

The mission and meetings addressed not only the importance of trade in general, but the importance of the ongoing NAFTA negotiations. In all, twenty-six members of the Arizona delegation attended the trade mission, which was noted in the Mexican press as the largest such foreign delegation of its kind.

Market Freedom Alliance strives to promote the common good and general welfare of Arizonans. Market Freedom Alliance was pleased to help sponsor the opportunity for the bipartisan Arizona delegation to learn first-hand about the economic and humanitarian benefits of the relationship with our Mexican trading partner. With $8.3 billion in exports and $7.4 billion in imports last year, Arizona has much to gain by fostering and improving our relationship with Mexico on trade. Mexico is Arizona’s number one trading partner and we trade more with Mexico than the next four partners combined (Canda, Korea, China and the United Kingdom). Our trade business accounts for close to 100,000 jobs in Arizona.

Because of our geographic proximity, shared cultural relations, and years of mutually beneficial trade, any business restrictions, including tarrifs, would be particularly damaging not only to Mexico, but to Arizona as well. Former executives of the Arizona Mexico Commission led meetings in an effort to articulate to Mexican counterparts that there is a broad consensus among the Arizona business community in strong support of a “modernized” NAFTA. Arizona has two of the most ardent free-trade Senators in the country, so despite the restrictionist rhetoric coming from Washington, DC, the trade delegation left Mexico with a sense of optimism about the future of NAFTA.

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Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and CEO, Glenn Hamer interview with Bloomberg.