Border Trade Alliance

Photo: Arizona Border Infrastructure Project

New Federal Attention in Addressing Trade and Travel Bottlenecks Will Help Support Millions of Jobs

In a move that will provide wide spread economic benefits by preparing our nation’s ports to meet the trade and security demands of the 21st century, the House and Senate included $720 million for infrastructure upgrades at U.S. land border ports of entry in the final conference agreement on the economic stimulus bill.

Border Trade Alliance, the organization that led the successful bi-partisan congressional effort to include border infrastructure funding in the stimulus, applauds congress for taking an important step in addressing the historic underinvestment at our nation’s port of entry.

According to President Obama and Speaker Pelosi, the key measurement for success of the economic stimulus is creating or saving 4 million jobs in the next year. Updating border ports infrastructure will not only help sustain jobs - 7.1 million jobs are generated by U.S.-Canadian trade alone - but will help to mitigate massive output losses resulting from nation-wide border congestion, which cost the US 55,675 jobs at California land ports in 2007.

The economic impact of investment at our nations’s POEs will not be confined to the border. In 2007, cross-border trade at U.S. land ports supported 3/4 of a trillion dollars in North American economic activity, which contributed more than $363 billion, over 2.5% of GDP, directly to our national economy. Additionally, 34 non-border states listed Canada, Mexico or both as their top two export markets, with many U.S. communities deriving a significant part of their local GDP from exports: Peoria, IL (52.3 percent, $9.2 billion); Davenport, IA (20.6 percent, $3.4 billion); and Cincinnati, OH (14.7 percent, $12.7 billion) are a few of the many specific examples.

Finally addressing the massive shortfall in POEs funding will begin to help reduce cross-border trade bottlenecks, resulting from overburdened and outdated infrastructure, that has added millions to the cost of doing business for manufacturers, transportation firms, and small businesses. Which in turn, will eventually help to lower the cost of goods for U.S. consumers and provide much needed increases in state and local sales tax revenue.

“Investment in cross-border trade and the infrastructure that supports it is a direct investment in the health of our national economy,” said Maria Luisa O’Connell, President of the Border Trade Alliance.  

Of the $720 million in total funding, $300 million will go to GSA for land port of entry infrastructure upgrades “not less than $300 million shall be available for border stations and land ports of entry” and $420 million for CBP “solely for planning, management, design, alteration, and construction of U.S. Customs and Border Protection owned land border ports of entry.”

Download the PDF Release: $720m in Economic Stimulus

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