Shared Security, Shared Prosperity

For more than two decades, I've researched and written about trade facilitation along the US-Mexico border. For most of that time, I operated under an implicit assumption: security was someone else's domain. My job was economic development—job creation, supply chain efficiency, regional prosperity. Security concerns, when they arose, were complications to be navigated, not integrated.

That assumption no longer holds. The world has changed, and my thinking has had to evolve with it.

The realization came gradually, then all at once. Watching fentanyl flows devastate communities while using the same logistics networks that create jobs. Seeing how supply chain disruptions ripple into national security concerns. Understanding that the prosperity we've built is only as durable as the systems that protect it.

The dichotomy I'd accepted for so long—trade people over here, security people over there—was always false. The most effective security doesn't come from building higher walls between legitimate commerce and everything else. It comes from building systems where participating in legitimate trade is easier than circumventing it.

Here is the uncomfortable truth that shapes everything: fentanyl precursors flow through the same channels as automotive parts. Cyber attacks target the same digital infrastructure that enables just-in-time manufacturing. The bridges, the ports, the data networks—they don't distinguish between what we want to encourage and what we need to stop.

This isn't a failure of imagination. It's physics. It's geography. The same infrastructure that makes Laredo the largest inland port in the Western Hemisphere also makes it a chokepoint for illicit flows. The same digital systems that track shipments in real-time are vulnerable to disruption.

The old approach treated this as a sorting problem: separate the good from the bad at the border, inspect everything, accept the friction as the cost of security. But that approach scales poorly. As trade volumes grow, inspection bottlenecks multiply. As threats evolve, static checkpoints become less effective.

The new approach recognizes that the channel itself is the asset. Securing it doesn't mean restricting it—it means understanding it deeply enough that anomalies become visible, that trusted actors can move freely while attention focuses on genuine risks.

For decades, the policy debate has been framed as a trade-off. Security hawks argue for tighter controls, accepting economic friction as the price of safety. Trade advocates push for facilitation, accepting security gaps as the cost of commerce. Each side wins sometimes, loses sometimes. The seesaw tips back and forth.

This zero-sum framing has shaped everything from budget allocations to agency cultures to political rhetoric. It's intuitive. It's wrong. And it's holding us back.

The evidence is already here. Trusted trader programs like C-TPAT demonstrate that companies willing to invest in supply chain security get faster processing—better security AND better trade flow. Pre-clearance systems show that moving inspections earlier in the supply chain catches more threats while reducing border congestion. Data-sharing initiatives reveal patterns invisible to any single agency.

These aren't compromises. They're proof of concept for a different framework entirely—one where the question isn't "how much security are we willing to trade for prosperity?" but "how do we design systems that deliver both?"

The connections aren't abstract. They're concrete, measurable, and already operating—whether we design for them or not. Every security investment affects economic flows. Every trade policy affects security capacity. The question is whether we're intentional about these connections.

Look at the web of relationships that define North American integration. Each node represents an objective. Each line represents a real, operational connection. Hover over any element to see how it links to the others.

This web isn't a policy proposal—it's a description of reality. Border security already affects trade facilitation. Cyber protection already affects supply chain integrity. Counter-narcotics success already affects regional development. The only question is whether we acknowledge these connections and design for them, or continue pretending each objective exists in isolation.

When we design for the web, we get virtuous cycles: efficient trade generates data that improves security, better security enables faster processing, faster processing attracts more legitimate commerce. When we ignore the web, we get fragmentation: security initiatives that hurt trade, trade policies that create security gaps, and communities caught in the crossfire.

North America stands at a crossroads. We can continue treating security and prosperity as separate challenges—coordinating in crises, then drifting back into silos. Or we can recognize what the evidence already shows: in 2025, these challenges are inseparable, and addressing them requires frameworks that acknowledge their interconnection.

This isn't about choosing between security and prosperity. It's about recognizing they're the same priority expressed through different lenses.

The infrastructure exists. The relationships exist. The shared challenges have never been clearer. What's needed is a shift in mental model—from viewing security and prosperity as competing priorities to understanding them as mutually reinforcing objectives.

The tools are available: trusted trader programs, data-sharing agreements, pre-clearance systems, coordinated enforcement. What's been missing is the framework that ties them together—the recognition that every investment in legitimate trade security is an investment in economic prosperity, and vice versa.