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It might be difficult to imagine what $347 billion in combined, annual U.S.-Mexico trade looks like, but taking a glance at the World Trade bridge that connects Laredo, Texas to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas is a good place to start.

Approximately, four out of every ten dollars of Mexican goods exported to the United States pass through the Nuevo Laredo-Laredo metropolitan area, which gives both cities the distinction of being the largest inland ports in their respective countries.

Before the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, Laredo and Nuevo Laredo were the same city. Level terrain made Laredo an ideal route for nineteenth century rail routes from Mexico city; the city’s fortunes intertwined early on with trade routes.

Today, that engagement with trade is the lifeblood of the city. Between Sept. 2006 and Sept. 2007, $50.7 billion worth of commercial goods passed through the Laredos on its way to Mexico and $67.2 billion passed through on its way to the United States. According to the Laredo Development Foundation, between 1987 and 2007 the city’s ports have experienced a 708% increase in northbound and southbound truck traffic and a 272% increase in loaded rail traffic transit.

Roger Creery, the director of the Laredo Development foundation, puts it another, perhaps more colorful way. "If you were to put all the trucks that pass through Laredo in one day in a single line, they would stretch from Laredo to San Antonio, Tex. - or 150 miles.”

The mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Ramòn Garza Barrios, and his American counterpart, Mayor Raul Salinas, insist that the two cities remain happily codependent. They also express mutual concern for recent measures on behalf of the U.S. government to harden and secure the international boundary.