A Mexican official blasted Texas last week over recent temporary border inspections of cargo trucks, accusing the state of using “trade as a political tool.”
“We’re now not going to use Texas,” Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier said Thursday, according to the Dallas Morning News, revealing that the country is changing plans to build a trade railway through the state, opting to run it through Santa Teresa, New Mexico, instead — only miles from the Texas border.
“We can’t leave all the eggs in one basket and be hostages to someone who wants to use trade as a political tool,” Clouthier said.
The railway is set to connect the port of Mazatlan to Winnipeg, Canada.
Clouthier’s comments come just weeks after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sought to implement inspections of cargo trucks along the border in response to the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42 later in May as well as crack down on human smugglers and drug trafficking.
The move caused massive traffic along the border, leading to three international bridge closures, and cost Texas businesses millions of dollars each day.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki blasted the move at the time, warning the entire nation would feel the effects of the supply chain disruptions.
“Governor Abbott’s unnecessary and redundant inspections of trucks transiting ports of entry between Texas and Mexico are causing significant disruptions to the food and automobile supply chains, delaying manufacturing, impacting jobs, and raising prices for families in Texas and across the country,” Psaki said in a statement.
“Commercial traffic has dropped by as much as 60[%]. The continuous flow of legitimate trade and travel and CBP’s ability to do its job should not be obstructed. Governor Abbott’s actions are impacting people’s jobs, and the livelihoods of hardworking American families,” she added, referring to US Customs and Border Protection.
Other Mexican officials, including Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, have criticized Abbott for the move.
While Obrador described it as “despicable,” Ebrard recently called it “extortion.”
“Let me put this in quotation marks, it’s an extortion scheme, or rather it is extortion; I close the border and you have to sign whatever I say. That’s not a deal, a deal is when you and I are in agreement on something,” Ebrard was quoted as saying by news network Milenio, according to Reuters.
Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar — who has openly criticized the Biden administration immigration policies, siding with many Republicans in the state — also warned Abbott against keeping the order in place, saying it provided “costly delays to the United States supply chain.”
“Requiring the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to conduct mechanical inspections (breaks, tires etc.) does nothing to address Title 42 except provide costly delays to the United States supply chain,” Cuellar wrote to Abbott in mid-April. “Your duplicative mechanical inspections have been costly to the local, state and national economies. None of the violations from these inspections involve the smuggling of drugs or people.”
Even members of the governor’s own party rebuked the move.
“Well, these two moves by our governor do nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigration or illegal drugs, I mean, absolutely zero,” Texas Agriculture Comissioner Sid Miller told NPR. “It’s a very easy fix, actually. If you want to fix the immigration problem and head off the Title 42 surge, you just reinstate the Trump-era policies. I’m not talking about just building the wall, but stopping the surge before it gets to American soil. Stop it on the southern border of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras.”
Shortly after Abbott implemented the order, he stopped the inspections along the international bridge from Nuevo Leon to Texas, saying he made a deal with his Mexican counterpart for pre-inspections before the trucks reach the border.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.