everyone could take their seats good morning welcome to the center portion t.j. and international studies for those of you who are here for the first time we are a bipartisan nonprofit public spall seasoned her to research on foreign policy issues than for the past six

years named the number one think-tank from the university of pennsylvania. and in the first 10 months of activity sold mexico and venezuela and the caribbean. to underline the fundamental importance between mexico and the united states we launched the u.s. mexico futures initiative one of the most talented specialist and campfire has steadied in the public and private sectors. before joining us last june she worked five years as of vice president for a

consultant firm for private clients. for the past years with the competitiveness and previously serving for more than a decade in to work on the national security council staff and we could have no one better qualified to lead this nation. with that will like to hand the meeting over to kim who will guide us through some of the issues that has been such the intense focus of public attention. we are required by law to make a brief security announcement there will be

guidance from staff and also cube emergency exit that the back of the room. >> so to have a very timely topic we did not know we would have the monday morning following the visit but i think that would have been timely. and in the one of them important relationships of the world. with clear strategic direction of us set southern

neighbor to address that full range of priorities. today we are here to talk about the u.s.-mexico border and in the past several months to have a conversation about borders security. so in a the modern world but that one too bad a conversation also touches on another major trust of the commercial side economics security is national security in the border plays a key role of legal goods in and out of the united states it is a barrier but we hope to do today is the rule of

the dual responsibilities to be open for those who pass through the u.s.-mexico border. and the framework in needs to be the barrier when and a conduit. in thinking about the border sometimes the needs to be closed at other times the golf needs to be open it is pretty sophisticated. and then to be legitimately related to national interest. to have to panels of the

border functions we have invited speakers to give us some ground troops. for those two are joining us from the states of which they live and work. i will introduce our first panel with the senior associate traveling here today where she is than an associate professor from the university of southern california program leading expert on mexico and mexican relationship. the representatives of '01 to will come from the

embassy and of mexico and his whole by no is in your packet but i have 2.0 he works in the embassy since 1992 with this more than fair to say he is the institutional memory of both governments on more popular issues. netted the director of the americas including mexico and policy development. thanks for coming. >> good morning be thinking for braving the cold weather for me it is colder in los angeles band here.

the border is where the rubber hits the road so given that to have a quick overview of the bilateral relations. of like to refer to the relationship today neither good nor bad prior to the rise of candidate donald trump with the close collaboration of mutual respect the vaguest oracle sensitive issue. with trump best candidate then-president referring to

mexicans as immigrants and rapists and murderers is threatening to deport tens of thousands of undocumented migrants and putting the wall up or to extend the current security then insist that mexico paid for it then threatened to pull the united states out of nafta. we can see the bilateral relationship is more tense than it is bad enough least a generation. with that deep institutionalized cooperation and to emanate from the top of u.s. government. precisely where we go from here it is another player with this relationship is not likely to return to the status quo any time soon and

how likely to look at what we have seen previously. it doesn't trust the united states so as an effort for a problem to report near shock to discover that power differential to attempt to coerce mexico went to doing our bidding. with that witnesses to look at the collapse of the peso of direct investment did with job creation. to be disrespect did has revived in mexico.

did with his new mexican nationalism it is always felt but at once the united states was the greatest ally and adversary. people constantly ask me the reaction to the politics administration could have a left-leaning candidate. emancipated is i have no way dia. -- idea. . .

patients a huge security challenge for mexico so they are not eager to end the cooperation. if that end is going to be to come from the u.s. side and mexico are the reasons will say okay. they know the attack on the uniteunited states emanating woe a disaster from the mexican national interest. the position makes it an essential ally for the united states and its weak power

position means exit code doesn't have a lot of latitude and issues deemed essential to national security. so particularly with regards to fighting organized crime, they are unlikely to threaten the united states with non- cooperation in this area. there's not a topic of today's event but to ignore it would be an impossible talk about security and commerce. this is true for at least two reasons. the renegotiation of the trade agreement in the united states include security and immigration. second, this is the issue that dominates the bilateral relationship and where the prophecy is being made. they are still theoretic and we don't have a commerce secretary in the united states.

there is a cooperation between the countries and the trump administration policy this far regarding deportation of undocumented migrants and the wall insisting mexico pay for it has made mexico. poisoning the rest of the bilateral relationship. let me elaborate on tha it brie. the united states cannot deport without the cooperation of their home country. mexico has been a highly cooperative part when it comes to deporting mexican immigrants. mexico is also aggressive at the southern border on behalf of the united states the last return was 140,000 central americans who were bound for the united

states but the administration's plans for the more aggressive enforcement of law and the rhetoric surrounding it has tested the patience. in particular bees and homeland security guidance laid out the plan for aggressive enforcement of immigration law was bad enough given its contents were the us-mexico elements but also to be sent back to mexico if they arrived through mexico to a week of their hearings. mexico went ballistic and it made it clear they will never accept the positions on what mexico must do. this matters because beyond poisoning the climate to reduce the tensions in the bilateral relationship is threatened position means it has the

capacity to clog up the detention system thereby complicating the deportation process. mexico's foreign minister and independent presidential candidate has been calling on mexico to strike back to the united states by refusing to accept any deportee unless he or she can prove she is mexican. the idea is a large number do not have large documentation in the united stateandthe united se forced to turn them back. the mexican government expressed zero interest in doing this. however if the united states insists upon forcing mexico to accept the non- mexican citizens they would be forced to check all of the papers of those being sent back across the border.

it allows them to pass on the way of the united states thereby dramatically increasing the number of migrants crossing the southern border. why would they act to poison such a relationship on the area of migration i have three potential explanations. one is it simply doesn't understand mexico which is possible. certainly none that was in the white house. second, he understands and doesn't care if this is the least likely. most likely he understands it is killing two birds with one stone. he is appealing to his domestic political constituency at the same time trying to keep mexico off balance for trade negotiations.

if this is the strategy it is misguided because all he is doinhe's doingis getting the nas hardening the position when it comes to negotiating on trade so let me briefly turned to trade. it is an area where the nonproductive outcome is not the most likely scenario, but it is a likely scenario. the bottom line simply do not match. donald trump wants to bring jobs back and reduce the trade deficit with mexico and constantly returned to the idea of using taxes to achieve these objectives. mexico has made it clear it will not accept this or any other outcomes that undermine the national interest and given the political context the negotiators simply cannot be seen to accept an outcome that harms the mexican interest. mexico also has very good card to play in the bilateral trade

relationship. this will ensure they are most vulnerable to the trump administration pressures. the structure makes it highly dependent on the trade and capital flow in the united states but also a place where the united states is vulnerable to the mexican pressure. the united states is more dependent on trade and capital flow than most americans realize and mexico is laying the groundwork for exploiting the vulnerabilities the united states has. mexico has experienced targeting taxes to where they will exact the greatest political cost for the united states. they did this quite precisely and they are setting the groundwork to do it again on the renegotiation of nafta. mexico is experiencing negotiating with argentina and brazil. the negotiating his new sources for agricultural input specifically corn.

the import 80% and they are looking for new sources to be able to target terrorist positions if need be. trade in the bilateral relationship was referred to the compliant trade rate. for the united states that is 3% that the united states charges with the rest of the world. mexico has a slightly higher rate so the exports would hurt more than those in the united states and of the agricultural goods it is 20% for this outcome would hurt the united states more than it would hurt mexico in terms of exports. finally mexico made it clear that it would respond to any taxes on its own. with my final comment, more productively mexico is also aggressively playing the china

card and we've heard numbers imports contained 40% u.s. content and china is only 4% and mexico is using that fact with the trump administration but mexico also realizes the united states needed to remain globally competitive to reduce the trade deficit with china if needs to trade with mexico because we've produced things together and competitively. finally, if the taxes are imposed with mexico that isn't going to leave them to come back to the united states committed well to go to another low-cost producer in order to be able to compete globally and with that i will finish my remarks. thank you very much. >> pamela, you are up. >> good morning everyone. it's great to be here. when we spoke about this, she and i agreed it would be perhaps

good that i share some of the stories of the last 25 years so you can see how we get here between the customs administration and whatever we do at the border. almost 25 years ago we began negotiating a tax treaty between mexico and the u.s. because we were starting negotiations on a free-tradfree trade agreement nl nafta. we negotiated the components into the uniform regulations to implement and created mind working groups at the time. but those working groups are to try to harmonize the data and the customs for the methodology

and how do they analyze any goods as the results so that we would be gratifying in the same way on the procedures etc.. then we completed that work, the working group becaus group calle us-mexico border working group and we divided into four regions and indians working groups or subgroups, we focused on infrastructure projects and the main goal was to move cargo out of the urban areas and if you take a picture 25 years ago and today coming to see that with due time we have been moving cargo out of downtown cities and

projects in the bilateral trade moves to different areas with better planning and highways and bridges etc.. we created an important working group because security has always been an important piece of the equation. also in the mid-'90s we developed something we called the north american automation and prototyping of the began moving trucks from one type to another by identifying them with things like that bu that we were testing at the time. then we had the events of 9/11 and we have to rethink everything we were doing and try to inject more focus on security and we did. we created a us-mexico partnership for security and prosperity and created ten working groups, they were

focused on the border and many of them on customs and security. our working groups were always developing initiatives and programs that had the two components at the same time. and later i will mention some of these initiatives and you will see how each of them has a strong component or a stronger component because we cannot accept that we are going to facilitate trade if we do not secure its first. we are not the red cross, we are customs and so we have to focus on security first so that we can facilitate trade. that's how we begin developing many initiatives. let me give you an example in

the early 2000's after the 9/11 evidence when the framework of standards in the negotiation was developed with the commissioner at the time we worked together with mexican companies to create our own program and at the same time to provide facilitation for those that decide to work the extra mile to put in the extra mile because you've increased your security standards in the process. and for example we developed these free and secure trading lanes and for an example today 41% of the exports in terms of the value and volume to the

united states moved through that is more than the u.s. imports from the uk, france and spain combined. the company is secure their supply chain and move cargo through the border they do it through these fast flames and get the benefit. then we decided we have to take the next step when the new administration arrived, we moved forward with more inter agency level cooperation and created the 21st centura21st century bot at the same time the customs continued working under their own engagement and we developed

a declaration of principles. we rejected that and worked on that document and then he bilateral strategic plan with very specific initiatives i will mention some of them. these bilateral plans had all of these components and trade facilitation components and infrastructure modernization components. we began reporting to the 21st century border of working groups that were created between the two governments. let me mention some of the initiatives we have developed in the last few years just to summarize what we have done in the last 25 years and where we are today.

we have the u.s. in mexico offices working in the same facility inspecting and clearing the cargo, analyzing the data and processing app i would say a much less expensive process but much faster. we started to ship air cargo to eight mexican airports. this pilot works for the aerospace electronic energy sector. through this program, for example, they inspected when it arrives in mexico and the companies have shared with us the results that they are saving

50% in terms of cost and 60% in terms of time and processing. we are looking at expanding that and opened a second one in 2016 for the mexican agricultural products and we look to expand that one as well. there is a third one coming and we agreed we would look at more and more u.s. airports that are bound to mexico. but this is a magnificent program and it shows exactly how we can work well when we work together having officers from both sides working together at the same facility fully uniformed and armed because we have to go through this amendment in the legislation to allow for this and the private sector of course.

this is a much bigger, larger ambitious program called the harmonize cargo. we are harmonizing the data for all of the modes of transportation. today, we are about to compete in the next two or three or four weeks a manifest. so companies are filing electronically at the same data sent to both of us and that facilitates trade for the companies and increases compliance and security for both countries. mexico actually implemented the new manifest in 2015 and the u.s. is getting there in the next few months and then we will have the manifest pretty soon.

we decided to copy and paste the cargo manifest and we did and it's going to be completed again in the next two or three. we've begun discussions on how to harmonize the truck manifest. i would say by the end of this year or actually before the summer we will have completely harmonized air and maritime in 2018. so, by 2018, we will have a completely harmonized cargo manifest and customs with the same data and trade facilitated for the participants at the same time increasing compliance and security in our bilateral trade. we also reached a mutual recognition agreement between the cities in the economic operator program and we do the same with canada and now we are

talking about visa arrangements and how to make it more harmonized so that a shipment from montréal to monterey to the cities of the same name but different languages they will reach and go through our custom in a harmonized way and completely secure way. we are streaming real images of the border. 17% of our trade moves on rail. let me go back about 15 or 20 years when mexico privatized because it was a state owned company, very inefficient state owned company and when we privatized at this time only 1% or less moved on. today it is 17% and we projected in about ten years we would

reach around 30% of the bilateral trade which is the same average that you have between the u.s. and canada. so i guess we are headed towards a north american way of moving cargo and that will impact all the decisions we make for infrastructure at the border. but knowing this on both sides of the border we are capable now of sharing images and facilitating the process but at the same time increasing security on both sides of the border. the data exchange, we exchange billions and billions every day for every shipment crossing the border for the information on passengers and cargo and vehicles and our intention is to keep increasing this cooperation. infrastructure you have heard about some of the products we launched last year at the

airport pedestrian bridge so that people in southern california don't have to travel long distances to catch a plane. they can get it from the tijuana airport. but at the same time, we opened another part in the texas bord border. but most importantly i would say the most ambitious program now is the all-time east. we are working on this and it will be the first infrastructure projects we design together and build together and we will operate together. the customs and the mexican immigration institute, we have completed the design of the process for both cargo and pedestrians and passenger vehicles so now the engineers on

both sides are designing that port based on the process we just developed. on the enforcement side, we have a strong enforcement working group and we share data and analyze the data together and with that we also have a program on risk management and targeting. there are analysts that the center and there is connection between the targeting center and our targeting center in mexico. there is a 24/mexican cooperation we do the joint risk management for the cargo approaching north america. i will stop there but we have a long list of things we have been doing in the last 25 years that shows how this delivers both in the trade facilitation and

security. i would finalize by saying that what we have been doing is developing a north american customs platform if you put all the pieces of the puzzle together at the end of the day what we are constructing is a north american customs platform and that is why we believe we should preserve that and expand the qualification because we both when by having these data exchange risk analysis to get their targeting good infrastructure always with a vision of facilitating trade and improving security in all of the projects. that is what we have been doing. i will stop right there. >> i am hoping to shoot the gap a little bit between the presentations. i need to take a step back and i realize for people that have been following mexico, the narrative i'm going to talk

about will not be surprising that it will be important to set the stage for what happened in the last decade to the relationship. the mexico border is the most cost is 2,000 miles long but i think if we look back at what we have done in the past, it provides interesting insights into how we might look at things going forward. the border was created as we roughly have it and there was a minor adjustment following this but it was the result of a war and so the border from the moment of its creation embodied this tension. there was a correctio friction t existed. existed. there is an asymmetry that developed a politically but the border provide a point of parody. it was the place where national

sovereignty could be exerted equally because mexico had as much control as the united states so even though there were political and economic differences, the border became this line of contention. from the mexican side then, the border was viewed with suspicion, there were sovereignty concerns. it became this sort of symbol of the ominous figure in the north for the united states but conversely it was also a place of economic prosperity so it was a schizophrenic in a sense. from the united states perspective it was equally. we sort of looked down at the neighbors to the south and yet relied on them for labor and it was a reliable respected source. i know my mother grew up in rural arizona and talks regularly about people coming across to help with the ranch. that's the way businesses for run back then.

so the old adage about those that happene happen to be neighi think is pretty accurate of a description. this played out in the national policies but was talked about in dc it really has a lot of resonance with what was happening at the border where we had communities that were interconnected and where people lived there for generations and it was the third country as people described, so that was a strange dissidence in the us-mexico relationship where politically, there was one thing in the life of those that lived on the border it was something else and for the most part, it was largely ignored. that's changed. we saw the increased buildup to the bush administration of the infrastructure that we currently have. but the ground shift in my personal opinion happened in

2007, 2008. the thing that's changed is both countries stood up and for the first time acknowledged beach had a responsibility for the challenge the other was facing. the bush administration stood up and said it is true that the money and the guns that go to the cartel usually come from the united states because we have the largest consumer drug market in the world and the government said yes and it is true that our cartels are producing those in a source of violence and we then sent we each cannot solve this individually we have to work collectively to do this and the initiative was a framework that alloweallows data to be impleme. where the u.s. provided for foreign assistance and the mexicans than matched and exceeded that effort with the money they put into their own security trade programs.

so that in my personal opinion was the beginning of what we see as a joint approach to dealing with common sets of issues. though there was a lot of economic stuff built into it it was a security narrative. that continued to mature in the obama 21st century border declaration that happened around 2010. what that kid is took this relationship that was largely security and started to infuse the notion of border management as a part of the relationship. the husband just the big issues of economics but managing the border was an important part of the relationship and we needed to do it together, which was consistent in the language used to talk about the initiative and then we saw the further development in the high-level economic dialogue and we started talking about the issues in the

context of joint management and so over the course of this period, we developed a series of these groundings that built the path for us to engage. i think they can be extended or modified since this is a short-lived. we reframed the issues as joint issues and started talking about them jointly that we ha have a common shared interest and that was important because it allowed us the political space to operate together. second, we accepted responsibility for those that each of us acknowledged he had a responsibility for the challenges we were facing and we could only meet our responsibilities working with the other part. third, we started to operationalize what had previously been political problems. we took it out of the politics and pushed it down into the area

of cohabitation operation and that has the magical effect of allowing people to cooperate because you are no longer debating the merits of a particular position but you are trying to find out how to solve a particular problem at the operational level and third but this is my own parochial belief as we started to redefine what the border flows were we stopped looking at the border as this line in the sand that runs east and west and we started talking about the flow as they go north and south because we began to recognize that for instance trade and migratory flows coming through mexico didn't always start in mexico sometimes asserted in areas south.

they would make a number for a sort of connection that then allowed us to work with our partners on both security, migratory or economic issues. we have half of the responsibility. that was one of the things. the national and economic security is dependent upon mexico's national and economic security vice versa and canada i would add as well.

we begin to frame the flows. not all of them pose the same amount of risk that some are more risky than others and the more we know about something the left wrist is attached to it.

the last notion of the joint responsibility and comanagement that undermines everything we do. we show the binational partners how to work together and establish what the process and ideas look like. and i think that we have moved to the point that the relationships we currently have may have bumps along the way and that is likely no matter what. but, the idea that we could go back to 1950 i think it's silly. we crossed a threshold where we may have challenge is that we are not going back in my personal opinion to where we were a decade or two or three or four decades ago.

third, the fact of the matter is because the shared border, the futures were interconnected and there is no way around that. so maybe i will just leave it at that and we can go from there. >> thanks everyone. to summarize what i just heard that this is what is fascinating about the relationship that the border when you start to dive into what's going on every single day between the two governments, you begin to realize when the political relationship with the national level isn't at its highest moment in memory which is underlining his coat as a positive and what may be at risk if we do not proceed in a way that tries to a to amend the br. there is one question i wanted to ask. acronyms slipped in and i think we should explain it for the audience and you are in a room full of people talking about

what america made a joke at a meeting once i gave an entire sentence formed entirely of acronyms related to cross-border trade and everyone in the room understood me. but in this context could you talk a little bit about ctpat and what it is? >> it is a u.s. program that is the business modeling coalition that is a private sector driven initiatives where they approached u.s. customs at the time, they approached the u.s. customs and asked them if i do this and that to secure my supply chain from the point of origin to the point of destination, could you give me something in return? would you facilitate the process of my shipment and the u.s.

customs said yes. at this time the business center modeling coalition foraged somehow through the '90s. then we have 9/11 and the u.s. customs cbp, not newly created, pushed this idea of customs that needed to create its own program so it improved it with some additional elements and add added to the global arena and he was a member of that working group and developed a safe framework of standards. the customs trade partnership against terrorism is the

evolution with those very supportive of it as long as they get a facilitation in the process. so, the program looks at the background checks and whether you get the packaging and the whole supply chain from the point of origin until it reaches its final destination to make sure that all of the security elements for the shipments are combined so that when it reaches the u.s. border is secure. and the same framework we began developing similars. we created the ndc and then changed the name to be compliant or consistent with wto and now

it is a program of the countries of the world have. i believe the idea was a magnificent idea, brilliant idea. at the end of the day, i'm not saying that the private sector is not to be trusted with the development. it worked for many years but after 9/11, the world changed somehow. they took that and improved th that. we cannot live in a world without security problems these days. we simply can't. mexico has been extremely supportive of this and that is why 40% are compliant. the problem that we have in this agreement, we try to provide the

same benefits so that when they reach the port they will get reduced inspections based on risk management of course and it was a brilliant idea that the private sector continues to be very supportive of it. >> when i have questions i call him also. [laughter] one thing that had come up in the discussions all of you mentioned there are many stakeholders in this relationship and sometimes we think about the relationship being between the united states and mexico and washington and mexico city and part of the reason we invited guests today from the border states is to bring in the broad perspective on this and post the private

sector and i wonder if any of you would like to comment on the relationship and how you see the development in the key points of entry. >> i will make one comment briefly. the one thing i think is interesting is i feel like the border communities themselves have always viewed themselves as unique. we have a columbus day celebration that has been going on forever. i don't mean this in a negative way but it is a unique celebration and it is remarkable what that symbolizes. the border from san diego to texas is different. there's different geography, different traditions.

but the fact of the matter is the border communities understand the border better than anybody else. the challenge of course is that the communities haven't done as well in talking about the border as everyone else. their perspective i think it's probablisprobably undervalued ad underrepresented in the national dialogue. i don't quite know how that gets the start. when you have politicians at the national level in dc talking about the border, it is often the case the things they say do not always align with the way that people would talk about the border and the i'm not saying that that's wrong but i do think there is an opportunity for the border constituent groups to be more vocal and forthcoming about

the perspective they have and what the border means to them and what the bilateral relationship has room to grow and i think we are making small steps in the conversation for instance. a local voices are much more prominent and that's good. that's the way that it should be. we have the bilateral bridges and the working group and other processes into the infrastructure group that we can really talk about those issues but the infrastructure and trade issues with good collaboration and the government of the locall level but it's not the communities themselves necessarily but there is an opportunity for that to be injected more prominently in the dialogue. >> in the customs perspective, we have communities that the border that meet regularl regul,

border directors and address the security issues, specific security issues. we took this approach because instead of having the 3,000-mile long screwdriver from washington and mexico city we said you have to address these issues locally and invites the trade community and this is what we have been doing. we have been replicating this border, developing these communities because it is a good idea to address the local issues, security issues and then see how we can solve them or support process to solve them. they've also evolved from trade committees so we maintain those both because we have to discuss some security issues to address the security issues but we also

keep the trade committees. >> the border communities are unique. they are as different from the rest of the individual countries as they are towards one another. the border communities are seen as distant from the capitals and they are not understood by the politicians and they need to do to achieve between the border communities and border states because they are different. i'm from los angeles which is completely different than being from san diego. our relationship with mexico is on a state to state level. we are not living on the border in los angeles. and the attitude about the border is distinct when you get into the border communities. to reemphasize, they need a

louder voice in how we go about managing the border because it is their reality and it is well represented in washington and mexico city. >> in the mexico customs, we have a saying when new personnel arrived at the headquarters. some of the them come with great ideas to solve problems at the borders and we say if you have been to a point of entry you have to know each plaintive entries of the communities know better than us and we should rely on their input and see how we can support it. they know the risk risk better e should support it. >> we are just about out of time and we will take a 15 minute break before we start with the

second panel so please be back around 10:15. i want to thank everyone for what was an interesting and a necessary discussion. thank you for coming. [applause]