San Diego Metropolitan - The Connection

The North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as NAFTA, took effect on Jan. 1, 1994. By 1999 Mexico had become the United States’ second leading trading partner — right behind Canada. But what about the trade relationships between Mexico and California and San Diego and Tijuana?

Also in 1999, Mexico’s trade with California leapfrogged Japan and Canada to No. 1. In 2000, California exported $19 billion to Mexico and Mexico exported $17.6 billion to California, leaving California a cool $1.4 billion surplus. The available (but not complete) figures for 2001 indicate not as high a dollar volume due to the recession in both countries, but the proportionate percentages will be almost the same.

Douglas Smurr, the director of the Mexico City-based California Office of Trade and Investments, was in San Diego as the invited speaker at the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast meeting.

Stressing Mexico’s importance to California trade, Smurr provides some interesting tidbits: Mexico’s imports from all the European Union countries, all Central and Latin American countries, and all the Asian countries in 2000, amounted to $20.6 billion — just $1.6 billion more than with California alone. But the $37 billion two-way trade between California and Mexico was $6 billion more than the $31 billion two-way trade between Mexico and all the above mentioned regions.

Not bad when you consider that four countries in the European Union are among the Top 10 world economies — Germany, third; United Kingdom, fourth; France, fifth; Italy, seventh; and in Latin America, Brazil, ninth. Plus others in the Top 10 that Mexico outperforms with California include Japan, second, China, sixth, and Canada, eighth. That’s eight out of the top 10, and the other two are the United States, first, and Mexico, tenth.

Smurr’s point is that relations between Mexico and California, independent of the rest of the United States, are indeed of great importance to the state’s economy.

San Diego plays a crucial role in this export/import bonanza.

A report from the San Diego Regional Association of Governments indicates that 44 percent of San Diego’s international exports go to Tijuana, making that municipality San Diego’s No. 1 trading partner. And, a whopping 90 percent of San Diego exports and $19.2 billion (52 percent) of the two-way trade between California and Mexico go through the Otay Mesa commercial port-of-entry.

Small wonder that Alejandra Mier y Teran, executive director of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce, is going around bending the ear of every elected official she meets. She is heard to say, “This is San Diego’s export corridor and its transportation infrastructure is totally inadequate.”

How could the most important commercial port-of-entry between California and its leading trading partner be opened without adequate roads to handle the volume of trucks and vehicles it attracts, Mier y Teran asks? A fair question, it seems.

In San Diego, when talking about the need for completing freeway 905, getting State Route 125 off and running, and constructing and completing needed arterial roads, everyone thinks that it is a South San Diego problem, and that North County road needs come first. And if San Diego thinks that way, the Greater Los Angeles and other regions give the issue even less thought.

But look at the data the California Department of Transportation’s planning department provides:

Origin of southbound (into Mexico) commercial cargo trucks:

24 percent from San Diego County.
52 percent from other Southern California counties.*
7 percent from foreign origin through the ports of Long Beach/San Pedro/LAX.
3 percent from Central and Northern California.
14 percent from mountain, central and eastern states.

Destination of northbound (from Mexico) commercial cargo trucks:

22 percent to San Diego County.
53 percent to other Southern California counties.*
2 percent to foreign destinations through Long Beach/San Pedro/LAX.
6 percent to Central and Northern California.
17 percent to mountain, central and eastern states.

While the volume of trucks may vary, the to and from percentages stay the same. But truck crossings at Otay Mesa have increased by 330 percent since its opening in 1995, and are projected to continue growing — unless it comes to a screeching halt due to the looming huge bottleneck.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, has been attempting to get Washington, D.C., to listen, but his chief complaint is that until such time as the city of San Diego and other regional leadership get behind the effort, limited success awaits.

Mier y Teran took the case to Mayor Murphy’s Latino Advisory Committee. She reports Murphy did genuinely listen and promise action.

It is obvious that a united regional effort is needed so our voice will be heard in Washington. But even more important, the united voice must reach out to the Greater Los Angeles Region for political support since it is they who are the greatest beneficiaries or the ones with the greatest potential loss.

The fact is that Otay Mesa is not just San Diego’s “Export Corridor” to Mexico — it’s all of California’s.

Patrick Osio Jr. can be reached through San Diego Metropolitan or by e-mail at posiojr@aol.com.