United States-Mexico Economic Partnership Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this measure. This is a good bill. I

thank its authors and Chairman Royce for bringing it forward.

I will discuss its merits in a moment because I can't, in good conscience, stand on the House floor and talk about our economic partnership with Mexico and not speak for a moment on what is happening right now on our southern border.

The President tweeted that the migrants seeking asylum in our country are stone-cold criminals. I have seen the images, and I don't see stone-cold criminals. I see children with bare feet. I see hungry mothers. I see toddlers in diapers. I see desperate fathers. And I see tear gas being lobbed from the United States into Mexico.

The President says not to worry. He says it is a very safe sort of tear gas. The American people aren't stupid. The American people know what this country stands for. They know we are a nation of immigrants. They know that America doesn't kick people when they are down or slam the door on those fleeing poverty and violence.

I hope the President gets the message.

Now, the measure before us deals with our incredibly important relationship with our neighbor to the south, Mexico. Mexico is our close friend and ally, our third largest trading partner, and a country with which we share extraordinarily close cultural and person-to-person ties.

This bill builds on the Obama administration's 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative by requiring the Secretary of State to expand the exchange programs that allow our students and business leaders to share and learn from each other.

There is no better way to advance the future of our bilateral ties than by allowing young people and professionals to experience what makes each of our countries unique.

It is also critical that we send a strong message to the Mexican people that the United States Congress will not walk away from them, despite any damage done to our relationship over the past several years.

As I have said many times in the Foreign Affairs Committee and on the House floor, the United States should be in the business of building bridges, not walls, to our friends in Mexico. The timing of this legislation could not be more ideal.

Mr. Speaker, 4 days from now, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be sworn in as President of Mexico. By passing this measure today, the House of Representatives is recommitting itself to our bilateral relationship. We are sending a loud and clear message that the prosperity of our countries' futures depends on an enduring U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), the author of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I close by again emphasizing the importance of the U.S.- Mexico relationship. For so many years, this relationship was characterized by mistrust. That has changed over the past two decades.

As just one example, bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics is now the norm and led to the extradition of drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman to the United States in the last hours of the Obama administration. He is on trial now in an American court.

Mr. Speaker, 20 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine coming to the House floor in support of a bipartisan bill on educational exchanges with Mexico. Now a bill like this will glide through the House with little opposition.

But we cannot take this cooperation for granted. Far too much is at stake to allow the bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico to deteriorate. There is a new government, a new leader of Mexico coming in, and I hope we can very swiftly establish the good relationship that our two countries have and not dwell on some of the recent discussions and problems involving a wall or anything else.

So I thank my colleagues for joining me in supporting this legislation to double down on the successes in the U.S.-Mexico partnership. I thank Chairman Royce, I thank the sponsors of this bill, I thank Mr. Cuellar, and I thank all our colleagues for supporting this bill. I urge its immediate passage.

The U.S.-Mexico partnership is one of our most important partnerships, and the House of Representatives ought to be doing everything it can to enhance that relationship, and that is one of the things we are doing by passing this bill today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member, Mr. Engel, for yielding to me and also for his leadership in helping to bring this bill to the floor. I thank him and his staff for the wonderful work that they have done. I also thank Chairman Royce and his staff for their leadership. I, with both Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel, spoke a lot about this bill and why it is important that we pass this particular bill.

I thank my colleagues, Representative Castro and Representative Poe, who helped on this bill. I thank them for their work on the committee, and also Representative McCaul for signing on as a bipartisan measure.

In fact, in the next few days, on Friday, Representative McCaul, myself, and a delegation will be going over to Mexico for the swearing in. I think this is a very appropriate time, as Mr. Engel mentioned, to have this bill to send this positive message.

This bill is important in many ways. It is bipartisan legislation that promotes mutual national security interests and economic partnership and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, with a focus on the energy, health, entrepreneurship, and education sectors.

Mexico is one of the United States' top trading partners, with an estimated $615 billion in two-way trade between those two countries, which means that every day there is more than $1.3 billion of trade between the U.S. and Mexico. That means that every single minute you are talking about more than $1 million of trade between the U.S. and Mexico, and this is why it is very important to have this type of relationship.

As the chairman mentioned a few minutes ago, in the 2015-2016 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education, more than 56,000 United States students studied in other countries in the Western Hemisphere, while more than 84,000 non-U.S. students from that region studied in the U.S.

However, there are only 5,000 of those United States students who studied in Mexico, and only 16,000 of those non-U.S. students were from Mexico. This is why we need to do more to increase our educational exchange with our very important trading partner.

Specifically, this bill establishes that it should be the policy of the United States to continue deepening the economic cooperation between the United States and Mexico and to expand the educational and professional exchange programs with our neighbors to the south. In order to do this, it would require the Secretary of State to develop a strategy that:

One, encourages more economic exchanges between the two countries at the secondary, postsecondary, and postgraduate levels, especially with communities in the southern border region;

Two, encourages the United States and Mexican academic institutions and businesses to collaborate to train aspiring entrepreneurs;

Three, promotes energy infrastructure coordination and cooperation through the support of vocational education, internships, and exchanges between both countries; and

Four, assesses the feasibility of fostering binational partnerships between universities and medical school and nursing programs, and that is a natural fit that we can do with that particular neighbor to the south.

So, again, if we increase economic exchanges at universities that we have in Texas and across California and New Mexico and Arizona and other parts, that basically means that we will better prepare our students for success in the workplace and increase job opportunities for those areas and the small businesses along the border.

Again, to conclude, I thank the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Chairman Ed Royce. He is very passionate about Mexico, and I thank him for that passion.

I thank Ranking Member Eliot Engel again. He is very passionate. I think this is something that we feel is very important about Mexico, and I thank him for advancing this bill through the committee.

And, again, to the staff, both on the Republican side and on the Democratic side, I thank them.

So, to conclude, I encourage my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation, and I look forward to seeing this bill pass into law.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1567) to promote economic partnership and cooperation between the United States and Mexico, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Representative Cuellar and Representative Castro as well as the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Engel, and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Mike McCaul, for their work on the legislation that we are considering here today.

The United States and Mexico share strong economic and cultural ties. As our neighbor to the south, a strong, stable Mexico benefits the United States. Realizing this, we already have many professional and educational exchanges between our two countries to help see that young people in Mexico graduate from school and enter the workforce with the skills, the credentials, and the experience that they need in the 21st century.

In the 2015-2016 school year, 5,000 U.S. students studied abroad in Mexico while 16,000 Mexican students studied in the U.S. They did this through various exchange programs.

These are good numbers, true, but more can be done to ensure that our young people are taking advantage of existing opportunities to study in both countries, and this bill builds on existing programs to expand and strengthen these exchanges.

In particular, the bill focuses on exchanges in four important areas, and these are higher education, medical school, entrepreneurship, and the energy sector. These are all areas from which the U.S. and Mexico stand to mutually benefit from greater cooperation.

There are, of course, areas in which the U.S.-Mexico relationship can improve. For example, Mexico needs to do more to combat the rampant corruption that has taken its toll on its citizens' trust.

But this does not mean that our two countries cannot work together to ensure a brighter, more successful future for young people in both of our countries. Educational and professional exchanges are key to that goal, so I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to again stress that this is one of America's most important relationships.

I would also like to stress my appreciation for the work of Congressman Henry Cuellar not just on this bill, but on the overall relationship with Mexico. I have had the opportunity to work with him in the past. I know his passion on this, and I appreciate his effectiveness.

I thank Representative Castro as well, and, of course, the ranking member of this committee, Mr. Engel. And I should mention the work, also, of the chairman of our Homeland Security Committee, Mike McCaul. They all worked on the legislation we are considering today.

I think that educational and professional exchanges really allow young American and Mexican students and young professionals the chance to not only experience a new culture for them, but also to ensure that our young people graduate from school and enter the workforce with the skills, the credentials, the experience, and the knowledge also about our neighbors, the knowledge they need in the 21st century.

I urge all of my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time