I have spent my 39-year professional career working in border communities, getting an up-close look as trade and cross-border cooperation transformed the economy of an entire region. Businesses expanded, jobs were created, and prosperity grew on both sides of the border because the United States, Mexico, and Canada chose partnership over protectionism.
The progress of the previous three decades now faces an important test. The White House’s decision not to immediately renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), while part of the agreement’s six-year review process, is nonetheless concerning because it injects uncertainty into a North American marketplace that depends on stability and predictability.
Businesses making long-term investment decisions don’t wait for uncertainty to resolve itself. They delay hiring, postpone expansion plans, reconsider where to build their next facility, and reevaluate long-term supply chains. Even the possibility that North America’s trade framework could unravel carries real economic consequences.
The USMCA is the bedrock of North American trade, supporting millions of American jobs and keeping our businesses competitive on the global stage. Today, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada represent one of the world’s largest trading blocs, with an annual trade volume exceeding $1.8 trillion. Every single day, more than $3 billion in goods and services flow across our borders, helping American companies and the workers they employ compete in our top two export markets. To walk away from this framework, or even allow its future to remain in doubt, is to gamble with the livelihoods of the 13 million Americans whose jobs depend on this trilateral relationship.
The benefits of the USMCA are not theoretical; they are felt daily by manufacturers, producers, growers, and consumers. Manufacturers rely on the USMCA's rules-based framework to plan years in advance and operate highly integrated supply chains in which components routinely cross borders multiple times before final assembly. That system allows each country to capitalize on its comparative strengths and skilled workforce, making North America more competitive globally—a model that would be severely weakened by a shift toward protectionism.
In the agricultural sector, the stakes are equally high. U.S. farmers and ranchers have gained critical market access to Canada and Mexico, which are consistently our top export destinations. This tariff-free trade in agricultural products not only supports domestic investment but also ensures that American consumers have year-round access to affordable, high-quality food. Abandoning the USMCA would mean higher costs at the grocery store and the sacrifice of American jobs in the heartland.
Crucially, we must maintain the agreement’s trilateral structure. The prosperity we have seen is a direct result of treating North America as a single, dynamic, and resilient trade bloc. Attempting to replace this with a patchwork of bilateral, sector-specific deals would erode the very efficiency that makes us competitive. Any erosion of these benefits risks undermining the integrated manufacturing and logistics systems that define our region.
Despite the administration’s choice not to automatically renew the agreement, the USMCA remains very much in force as the three countries continue its review. This period should be seen as an opportunity to address targeted compliance challenges—such as dairy trade issues in Canada or energy policies in Mexico—without undermining the stability of the entire agreement. We should be focused on modernizing our borders, expanding trusted-trader programs, and investing in the infrastructure that a 21st-century economy demands.
The USMCA has provided the stability and predictability that has led to greater prosperity across the continent. It ensures that virtually all U.S. exports enter our neighbors’ markets tariff-free and allows small and mid-sized businesses to compete internationally for the first time. Those benefits are well worth preserving. We should take every opportunity to strengthen the agreement while rejecting protectionist actions that would spark retaliatory tariffs and weaken our economy.
My experience has taught me that North America is strongest when we compete together rather than against one another. Preserving that spirit of trilateral cooperation should remain our guiding objective.
Editor’s Note: The above commentary was penned by Pete Sepulveda, Jr., chairman of the Border Trade Alliance and executive director of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority. The commentary appears in the RGG Business Journal with the permission of the author.
