LAREDO, Texas — There have been lots of comings and goings in Laredo this year. Out of more than 450 airports, seaports and border crossings in this country, USTRADENUMBERS says the one that ranks highest in terms of total dollars in trade value is… Port Laredo.
If you pull up random shots from the Laredo border crossing cams, you will inevitably see lines and lines of trucks. But you don’t just have to look at them in Laredo to see the effects of all the trade pouring through there.
Many of those big rigs continue well into other parts of Texas. And the arteries that carry all that truck traffic are expected to get more congested with trucks in the years ahead. Here is a federal analysis comparing freight flows in Texas from 2012 to what is projected in 2045.
And many of those big rigs may be heading to giant warehouses that keep popping up in Texas. Site selection magazine reports that Texas has led the country with 1,800 new logistics facility projects over the last five years, blowing away the totals from every other state.
'Nearshoring' driving trade traffic to Texas border
A lot of this is being driven by "nearshoring". In the wake of COVID disruptions and trade wars, many companies have been working to move their supply chains away from overseas locations to points closer, like Mexico–right next to Laredo.
But as I told you last year when we took Right on the Money to the border in McAllen, freight handlers shared they have noticed many Chinese and other foreign companies moving into Mexico in a big way so they can produce and assemble things there and get stamped Made in Mexico. They said that allows those products to enter the U.S. duty and tariff free. The strategy has become well documented since.
Huge trade totals in Laredo
Port Laredo has benefitted big. From January through September of this year, USTRADENUMBERS documented how a nation-leading $241 billion in imports and exports went through Laredo.
That would put Port Laredo on pace to handle $321 billion in trade this year. For perspective, that is almost exactly the same amount as the two-year budget legislators passed this year for the entire state of Texas.
If you find trade trivia to be kind of fun, look a little further down that USTRADENUMBERS analysis, where you can hover over different categories of imports and exports to get an idea of all the different stuff funneling through the border at Laredo.
If you don’t want to take the time to do that, but still want the trivia nuggets, it goes from the most valuable export of motor vehicle parts to the smallest dollar value export listed as siliceous fossil meals. As far as imports go at Port Laredo, the numbers reveal the most valuable import category (also motor vehicle parts) to the least valuable one listed. That distinction goes to ties, bowties and cravats.