LAREDO, Texas - The Port of Laredo was the busiest port - be it maritime, air, or land - in the United States in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The value of imports and exports passing through Laredo in 2023 topped $300 billion, a record for the port.

The news was not a surprise to Gene Lindgren, president and CEO of Laredo Economic Development Corporation. The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service interviewed him a month or so back and he was fully expecting his city to be named No. 1.

“We’re waiting on the edge of our seats for the entire 2023 numbers to be official and published, and we'll probably see those around February 11, as reported by the US Census Bureau,” Lindgren told the Guardian.

“Then those numbers will probably be repeated in a more user-friendly fashion through a media think-tank called World City. But I highly anticipate that we're going to be in the neighborhood of ending the year with total import and export values passing through Port Laredo at $320 billion.”

Lindgren said that through November, 2023, the value of imports and exports at the Laredo port stood at $296 billion. “It is not unheard of to have $24 billion in December. So that would be an increase from 2022 to $298.5 billion.” 

Lindgren said that while global trade was down about four percent, Laredo’s trade was up almost eight percent.

Lindgren was asked if the growth in Laredo is due to the impact of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

“Well, USMCA is, as you know, the new and improved version of NAFTA, which is celebrating its 30th year this year. It was ratified in 1994 and it has completely changed the landscape of manufacturing in North America, in the supply chain between Mexico, the United States and even Canada,” Lindgren said.

“And so it's USMCA and then, post pandemic, it is near-shoring, ally-shoring, re-shoring, all of the above.”

Lindgren continued: “International manufacturing companies have re-evaluated their footprint since the pandemic recovery. These footprint moves take years to evaluate and implement and get into production. We're now seeing that happen. So, it’s the industrial boom in Monterrey and Saltillo and Torreón in northern Mexico and even southern Mexico.”

Lindgren said Laredo is benefiting from industrial activity in the interior of Mexico also.

“The automotive market is starting to recover from its chip shortage, and so the automotive plants in Puebla and Guadalajara and Toluca, and more in mid- and southern Mexico… we (Laredo) are in that perfect place.”

Lindgren asked the rhetorical question, how does all that industrial activity in Mexico help the United States. He answered his own question. 

“Studies have shown that 40 percent of the raw material for the maquiladora plants still come from the United States. So it helps North America, it helps Mexico and it helps the United States and it even helps Canada,” Lindgren said.

“The more competitive that we can be as a continent, as a region, under USMCA, the more manufacturing we can do within North America, the less and less dependent we have to be on China. And that contributes to national defense as well.”

In his interview with the Guardian, Lindgren also spoke about positive national and international news coverage for Laredo, including in Spain, planned improvements to his city’s international bridges, development of the city’s airport, and the likely impact of the Tesla gigafactory in Monterrey.

Here is an audio recording of the interview.

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