Courtesy Photo / Office of the Governor
Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at one many recent press conferences trumpeting his plans to crack down on border crossings.
Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier said a project called the T-MEC Corridor connecting Mexico's port of Mazatlán with Central Canada will now pass through New Mexico instead of Texas, the Dallas Morning News reports.
“We’re now not going to use Texas,” Clouthier said at Mexico City news conference covered by the newspaper. “We can’t leave all the eggs in one basket and be hostages to someone who wants to use trade as a political tool.”
The decision to bypass Texas on the rail expansion is the first sign of serious damage to the relationship between the Lone Star state and its top trading partner in the wake of Abbott's April 6 order. The GOP governor required all commercial vehicles coming in from Mexico undergo state inspections on top of the federal ones they receive.
The move bottlenecked border trade for more than a week, ruining millions in perishables and further the crimping supply chain. Despite Abbott's insistence that the inspections were needed to thwart human and drug smuggling, state staff found no drugs, weapons or other contraband, Department of Public Safety data shows.
According to the Morning News, the T-MEC Corridor will now skirt Texas by about 20 miles, passing instead through Santa Teresa, N.M., located across the border from El Paso.
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