Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2010

The United States and Mexico: More Than Neighbors

Andrew Selee, Christopher Wilson, Katie Putnam

May 2010

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Abstract

No country in the world affects daily life in the United States more than Mexico. The two countries are deeply intertwined, and what happens on one side of the border necessarily has consequences on the other side. Almost one in ten Americans is of Mexican descent, and a third of all immigrants in the United States today are from Mexico, while well over a half-million Americans live in Mexico. Mexico remains the second destination for U.S. exports after Canada, and millions of American jobs depend on this trade. From south to north the linkages are even greater: over three quarters of Mexico’s exports go to the United States and one in ten Mexicans lives in the United States.