As of December 2022, United States and Mexico are celebrating 200 years of bilateral relations. Over these two hundred years, our nations have developed rich diplomatic and cultural ties where agriculture and trade considerations feature a prominent role.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) established their strong foundation for cooperation well over 100 years ago through many notable and successful achievements, such as preventing infectious animal diseases like foot and mouth disease from entering our countries and protecting plant health by limiting invasive insect movement across borders.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) support these efforts on behalf of the American people, working with our Mexican counterpart, Food Safety and Agro-Quality (SENASICA). We have a long, successful history of cooperative plant pest and animal disease control and eradication programs designed to protect the farmers and ranchers in each country, ensure an abundant food source for our citizens, and ensure continued trade. During the past 50 years, USDA has negotiated extremely successful sanitary and phytosanitary agricultural trade agreements now totaling over $60 billion per year.
As we celebrate this 200th anniversary, let’s take an opportunity to reflect on the great work happening on both sides of the border to protect agricultural resources. We look forward to 200 more years of facilitating safe trade through science-based safeguarding standards. Follow APHIS on Twitter or Facebook for more pictures and memories of these last 200 years.
Editor’s Note: Nick Gutiérrez is APHIS’ Regional Manager responsible for covering all the animal & plant health-related programs in Mexico. He retired from this same position in 2015, after almost 36 years as an APHIS Foreign Service Officer. Nick immediately jumped at the opportunity to return to Mexico City, be reunited with his APHIS colleagues, and get back to work with long-standing associates and collaborators within SADER) and SENASICA.