By Kansas City (MO) Mayor Kay Barnes
November 6, 2006

It is a surprise to many that America’s next great trading port is some 1,500 miles from the Pacific Ocean and more than 900 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. And, despite its inland location, Kansas City (MO) – the geographic center of the continent with excellent interstate roadway, railroad and aviation infrastructure - may also soon be home to the first foreign-based customs inspection office on United States soil.

If all goes according to plan – a plan recently described as “bold and imaginative” – it will also bring economic benefits to all three North American nations; the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Very rarely since President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 have North American leaders envisioned and sought the competitive benefits that would accrue from greater regional economic integration.

Some of those very leaders will gather November 30 through December 2 in Kansas City at North America Works II, a conference to discuss the impact of transportation infrastructure on North American competitiveness.

Sponsored by Kansas City International Affairs and Trade Office and the Council of the Americas, leaders are expected to address the role of urban regions in North American competitiveness, a comprehensive North American transportation strategy and building informed constituencies for North American integration in government, academia and the media.

According to the U.S. Council of the Mexico-U.S. Business Committee, if North American economic integration ends with NAFTA, we will find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage with Asia, because the relative gains from NAFTA have mostly been eroded by the Chinese and, to a lesser extent, Indian economic explosions.

If U.S. and Canada hope to compete with China and other emerging economies by the time Asia reaches greater economic maturity in 2020 and 2030, both nations will have to work closely with Mexico to mobilize additional public and private sector resources to advance Mexico’s development.

Both nations will also have to establish economic and commercial frameworks to take full advantage of economic efficiencies that would naturally accrue with the creation of a larger internal North American market and harmonization of cross-border business practices and regulations.

With the 2005 U.S. Census Bureau reporting that the international trade deficit in goods and services increased to $57.0 billion in April 2005, there is an ever-growing need for cities to be more involved in this international development discussion.

Kansas City’s trade corridor is a novel way that cities can become involved in their own survival. As the trade deficit continues to grow and companies move their plants overseas, cities must find and create their own niche markets in the global economy. For Kansas City, this has meant promoting ourselves as a distribution center.

The corridor is comprised of several partnerships that allow Kansas City and its partners to market themselves jointly to Asian, Central American, and other international businesses looking to cut their distribution times and costs at capacity'strained ports in Long Beach and Oakland (CA), and Seattle and Tacoma (WA).

Created in 2001, SmartPort, a non-profit development corporation, strives to develop Kansas City as an international trading center by increasing trade volume and business for the transportation and logistics industries and by making it cheaper and more efficient for companies to import and export. It does this by creating more efficient trade routes and providing information and assistance to those companies looking to transport an array goods – a gamut that includes such commodities as agriculture, automobiles retail merchandise, and freight as large as pre-built houses.

Today, together with SmartPort, the city patiently awaits the green light from the federal government’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in the Department of Homeland Security as the Mexican customs facility proposal awaits approval.

In order to understand how Kansas City has moved to the forefront of NAFTA trade, one must first understand that trade has been a vital part of this city since its birth more than two centuries ago.

The city has its roots as a trading post and later as a source of supplies and a point of departure for those headed west, such as on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. Following the Civil War, Kansas City’s future was secured with the passage of a Congressional act that allowed for the construction of a bridge across the Missouri River to facilitate trade. With the advent of the railroad, Kansas City became a major rail hub allowing for the trans-American traveling of goods. Throughout the city’s history, trade has remained an important component of the city’s identity.

Trade is vital to many cities throughout the country; however, few cities can boast the same infrastructure amenities as our city. According to Dr. Stephan Blank, professor of international business at Pace University, New York City, through most of U.S.’s history, the Kansas City area has been a fundamental link in the country’s freight transportation system. One study cites that 80 million tons of freight moved to and from the region and approximately 50 percent of all eastbound inter-modal freight originating in California passed through the Kansas City area.

This stunning volume has been achieved through the region’s superior transportation and distribution infrastructure of rail, road, air, foreign trade zone and storage.

We are home to the second largest rail center in the country. With more than 10,000 acres, the city boasts more Foreign Trade Zone space than any other U.S. city. Located at the epicenter of three of the nation’s major interstate highways and located on the largest navigable inland waterway, Kansas City moves more air cargo each year than any neighboring air centers in a six'state region. Additionally, Kansas City has Subtropolis, the world’s largest underground business complex, which is an industrial park with nearly five million square feet of leasable space that allows the city to store the goods it distributes. Finally, thanks to the converted 14-acre Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base, the city posses an International Freight Gateway, which serves as an inter-modal trade facility.

Learned from the past, integration in the new global economy comes from commercial, economic, political and cultural cooperation. Commercial diplomacy – when business between nations leads to diplomatic friendship – is a currency always accepted abroad.

It is in each of our best interests – the United States, Canada and Mexico - to find ways to work more fully together so that in the global economy, we will not be able not just to survive but also to flourish. We cannot succeed without greater North American integration, with several new solutions expected to be promoted at North America Works II.

Kansas City and the Council of the Americas will host North America Works II November 30 through December 2. For more information, visit www.kcmo.org.