Remarks by Secretary Slater, World Trade Bridge Ribbon Cutting Ceremony |
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Rodney E. Slater, United States Secretary of Transportation
April 14, 2000
Thank you, Saul, not only for introducing me, but also for your pivotal role while serving as Laredo’s mayor and as a city council member here, in getting this bridge project underway.
We should also acknowledge former governor Anne Richards, who literally "hand carried" the Presidential Permit needed for the U.S. side of this project, through the approval process in Washington.
And, of course, my very special thanks to Mayor Betty Flores, who as a leader of this community has played a tremendous role in seeing the World Trade Bridge through to completion.
Thanks also to all of the other business and community leaders and government officials here today who have played a role in turning the dream of a fourth bridge across the Rio Grande here into reality.
One of those community leaders deserving our thanks is the Honorable Horacio Garza Garza, Presidente Municipal, Nuevo Laredo, who, along with the government and people of Mexico has worked extraordinarily hard to foster this new connection between our two countries.
And I want to express my personal appreciation to my good friend, Mexico’s Secretary of Transportation, Carlos Ruiz Sacristan, who has worked enormously hard to build bridges of trust, transportation and trade between our two nations.
But foremost among those whom we should acknowledge today are President Clinton and President Zedillo. They have done a superlative job in reconciling past differences between our two countries.
As President Clinton said during his visit with President Zedillo in Merida, Mexico last year—
"Like any family, we will have our differences -- born of history, experience, instinct, honest opinion. But like any family, we know that what binds us together is far, far more important than what divides us."
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One tie that surely binds us is transportation. That is why, on behalf of President Clinton and Vice President Gore I am delighted to join all of you here today for the dedication of the Laredo IV World Trade Bridge.
This project represents a cooperative investment of over $128 million by local, state and federal funds in a joint effort to provide a more effective system for moving people, goods and services across the Rio Grande.
As your printed program points out, this bridge was built "through the dedicated efforts of many individuals, both public and private."
In a video message shown at a reception last night, President Clinton reminded us that this bridge "Isn’t just a way to get from Laredo to Nuevo Laredo -- this bridge connects our cultures and our countries."
With the opening of the World Trade Bridge, residents on both sides of the border can look forward to less congestion, cleaner air and improved highway safety. They can also look forward to the end of what was fast becoming a major bottleneck to commercial traffic between the United States and Mexico.
Almost every day, trucks heading south on Interstate 35 are backed up from the border for five miles or more. Laredo is already the busiest port of entry on the Texas-Mexico border.
Cross-border commercial traffic here has jumped 800 percent in just the past three years and we expect more than 2 million trucks a year to pass through Laredo by the year 2010.
As Vice President Gore has said,
"A strategy for investing in and empowering this region to meet the challenges of the 21st century is vital, not only to the people and communities along the Southwest Border, but to the entire country. This is a critical component in strengthening America’s economic infrastructure and in creating jobs, hope and opportunity."
My visit to Laredo today is the first stop on a 7-day, 12-state Intermodal Transportation Tour to promote the Clinton-Gore Administration’s vision of a new policy architecture for transportation that is international in reach, intermodal in form, intelligent in character, inclusive in service and innovative in scope.
The World Trade Bridge at Laredo clearly meets all five of these criteria.
To help ground this new architecture in a clear vision of the future over the next 25 years, the U.S. Department of Transportation is conducting what we call "2025 Visioning Exercises" with all segments of the transportation community across the country, with several sessions scheduled for this week’s mission.
And this coming October I will host a major International Transportation Symposium for our partners and colleagues from around the world in Washington, D.C., where we will consider best practices and innovative ideas with respect to all modes of transportation.
I think the way Mexico and the U.S. have worked together on the Laredo IV bridge project can clearly be a best practice model for similar ventures around the world. And I hope that some of you who have been instrumental in making this project a success will join us for this symposium.
After today’s ribbon-cutting here at the U.S.-Mexican border, my Intermodal Tour will continue with stops along the proposed Interstate 69 International Trade Corridor between here and Canada, as well as other transportation sites in the upper Midwest, Appalachia, and New York State.
This trade corridor is a big idea with big consequences. Construction of I-69 will be one of America’s major economic development investments of the 21st century and one of the lasting legacies of this Administration. A Canada-to-Mexico trade corridor through America’s heartland will be a powerful economic spine integrating rail, air, water, and road transportation efficiently and economically.
Thirty-eight percent of the dollar-value of U.S. truck-borne trade with Mexico and Canada already passes through states on both sides of the route. When I-69 is completed, that percentage will surely rise. And 20 of our nation’s top 25 seaports will also lie within easy reach of the corridor.
This corridor also connects routes across borders. In January 1997, President Zedillo inaugurated a "NAFTA highway" to boost trade between Mexico and the U.S. And later that year he dedicated 62 miles of the highway, a stretch that runs through the state of San Luis Potosi, about halfway between Mexico City and here in Laredo. Today that new road already carries about half the cargo running between the U.S. and Mexico.
While construction of I-69 creates many opportunities, its major benefit will clearly come from its role as a trade corridor. During the past six years, more than one quarter of U.S. economic growth has come from increased exports. And by the year 2010, the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, Canada and Mexico, will be a larger market than Western Europe and the Pacific Rim combined.
That is why the President has made hemispheric cooperation a top priority of this Administration. Seven years ago the democratic nations of the Americas met in an historic Summit of the Americas in Miami. There, in President Clinton’s words, the nations of the Western Hemisphere "planted the seeds of a new partnership based on a common vision of a democratic, prosperous, peaceful, united hemisphere by the 21st Century."
The core of that vision was the commitment to seek a free trade area for the Americas early in the next century. However, achieving this grand vision of a free trade zone will mean little if our transportation infrastructure cannot support the rapid increase in multilateral trade we anticipate.
At the end of the day, the vision we seek to realize is not limited to a new connection between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. Our shared vision for the transportation future of this hemisphere is of a "seamless network of highways, rail lines, shipping routes and aviation corridors stretching from the Yukon to Tierra del Fuego."
This new bridge connecting Laredo and Nuevo Laredo is clearly part of something big. Transportation is truly the tie that binds. But more importantly, it lifts up the people of our nations, affording greater opportunity for all.
I believe that as future leaders of our two nations look back upon our efforts, they too will be proud of the World Trade Bridge our two nations built together. Thank you.
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Source: U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)