Border Trade Alliance

Our North American Border communities reside at the intersection of the worlds most powerful trading partners, exist as a nexus of cultures, and operate as gateways to trade and travel, uniting us with our neighbors in our shared humanity and pursuit of prosperity.

As autonomous municipalities of varying sizes, governed by local, state, and federal governments within distinct geographic regions, Border Communities embody of a variety of specific constitutional elements, resources and needs, but they are not paragons; together they share larger unifying commonalities such as:

• Impact North American economic competitiveness and national economies.
• Locally affected by federal policies or programs driven by national perceptions.
• Need legislation and appropriations that adequately address economic, social, environmental, and diplomatic impacts on communities
• Collaboration with federal agencies operating at the border
• Negatively impacted by under-funded or under-staffed federal mandates
• Need to improve an aging and overburdened infrastructure at ports of entry
• Desire for community economic development and attractive business climate
• Directly benefit from increased cross-border trade and travel
• Citizens that travel and do business on both sides of the border
• Companies that operate on both sides of the border
• Suffer from negative PR from inflammatory rhetoric surrounding political football issues such as illegal immigration
• Inextricably linked with neighboring countries and communities on opposite sides of the border

Of the aforementioned elements that our border communities share in common, perhaps the most important for us to recognize as a group of nations, is the significance of our growing economic inter-dependence on our borders and border communities in an increasingly global economy.

For instance, in 2007, there was close to $300 billion in two-way trade between the United States and Mexico, or to put it in another context $1,000 per American or $4,000 for an American family of four. U.S.–Canada surface transportation trade alone totaled $48.9 billion. Our border communities share the burdens and the blessings that come with facilitating massive amount of cross-border trade and travel activity, and thus their role in our North American economy has never been more vital.

As such, their shared stakes as the managers, representatives, facilitators, and benefactors that understand the everyday realities of our trade corridors, is not to be underestimated. It is imperative that the federal policies, affecting cross-border trade and travel are shaped with input from the invaluable experiences of our Border Communities, whose first-hand understanding of issues unique to the border, can enable us to develop viable long-term solutions, not rubber-stamped, top-down, one-size fits all approaches.

BTA’s belief in the critical importance of our border communities and the power they hold in determining our nations’ economic and physical security, has led us to the development of “Our Borders, Our Futures: BTA Regional Meeting Series,” geared toward creating a dialog between federal policy makers and regional stakeholders, in order to develop sustainable common-sense solutions to critical border issues specific to the needs of a particular region.  The first regional event in the series will be hosted in partnership with the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation in the city of Yuma, Arizona on Sept 19, 2008, with one in Detroit, Michigan to follow later in the year.  To register for an event, or inquire about sponsoring an event in your region, please visit the BTA Events page on the website, or contact:

Luis Arellano at 800.333.5523

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