News

Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, P.L.C. is proud to sponsor the 2020 Virtual Arizona & Mexico Town Hall Series highlighting Cross-Border Connecting.

Despite COVID-19 causing in-person conferences and meetings to come to a grinding halt, cross-border trade, investment, and cooperation between the United States and Mexico must continue. The Arizona Town Hall in partnership with Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, P.L.C., hosted the first of six virtual Arizona & Mexico Town Hall discussions on July 16, 2020, aimed at ensuring that cross-border connecting continues to thrive.

Participants in the July 16^th Arizona & Mexico Town Hall, titled, “COVID-19 Cross-Border Challenges,” explored the socioeconomic challenges being faced by residents and businesses of Arizona and Sonora, and how public and private sector leaders can address the challenges posed by the pandemic.  For example, many industries with key supply chains located in Mexico had to change their mode of thinking when COVID-19 hit the Arizona-Sonora Megaregion.  The pandemic caused factories to shut down out of concern for employee safety.  In response, the industry has created and implemented various safety protocols that take into consideration public health recommendations to protect factory workers so they can safely return to work and the supply chain can return to a sense of normalcy.  One of the recommendations that came out of the Town Hall discussion was the need for the public and private sector to examine how the safety protocols and best practices being implemented at industrial factories can be used in other economic sectors.

Patrick F. Welch, a Jennings Strouss litigation attorney is one of the organizers of the Arizona & Mexico Town Hall program who participated in the July 16^th discussion. Mr. Welch states, “When we realized that an in-person Arizona & Mexico Town Hall program would not be held due to the pandemic and closure of the border to non-essential traffic we saw an immediate need to help connect key decision makers involved in cross-border trade and investment.”

The Arizona & Mexico Town Hall’s Cross-Border Connecting Series will continue next month on August 20, 2020, with a discussion titled, “Implementation of the USMCA – Opportunities for Arizona and Sonora.”  The program will include remarks by Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and Chief Executive Officer Glenn Hammer, followed by a Town Hall style discussion between registered participants.  For more information and to register for the program, please visit the Arizona Town Hall website at https://www.aztownhall.org/Hermosillo2020.