Reynosa
Reynosa is one of North America's largest electronics manufacturing hubs — Samsung, LG, Honeywell and dozens of others operate maquiladora plants here — built entirely on NAFTA's tariff framework and proximity to McAllen, Texas; it also sits on Mexico's largest natural gas basin (Burgos).
Three things cross the Rio Grande at Reynosa. Natural gas moves north through pipelines from the Burgos Basin — one of Mexico's major natural gas producing regions, underlying northeastern Tamaulipas. Manufactured goods move north through the bridges connecting Reynosa to McAllen and Hidalgo, Texas — electronics, auto parts, medical devices assembled in the maquiladora plants that line the Mexican side of the border. People move in both directions, continuously.
The maquiladora economy at Reynosa is not incidental. The city is one of the largest electronics manufacturing hubs in North America — Samsung, LG, Honeywell, and dozens of other multinationals operate plants here that produce components and finished goods for the US market under NAFTA and its successor USMCA. The tariff framework allows raw materials to enter Mexico duty-free, be assembled by Mexican labour, and return to the US market as finished goods with preferential trade treatment. Reynosa's population grew from roughly 100,000 in the 1970s to nearly 600,000 today — almost entirely because NAFTA made this border location the most economical point to assemble goods destined for American consumers.
The Burgos Basin natural gas field runs beneath Reynosa and extends across northeastern Mexico. PEMEX operates processing facilities here; pipelines carry the processed gas across the Rio Grande into Texas distribution networks. The city simultaneously supplies American manufacturers with assembled goods and American homes with fuel — two different forms of the same fundamental logic: energy and labour, cheaper on the Mexican side of the line, extracted at this crossing point.
The monarch butterfly migrates through this exact stretch of the Rio Grande valley on its annual movement between Canada and the central Mexican highlands. The migration depends on a chain of habitats along the route — milkweed stands for larval feeding, nectar sources for adult butterflies — and the Rio Grande corridor is one of the critical bottlenecks where the entire population funnels through. Reynosa's supply chains operate on identical logic: materials, components, and labour converge at this border crossing because the institutional framework (NAFTA/USMCA) made this bottleneck the most efficient route for goods to complete their journey from raw material to consumer market.
Reynosa sits atop the Burgos Basin — Mexico's largest natural gas reserve — while also being one of North America's largest electronics manufacturing hubs; the city simultaneously supplies the US with assembled consumer electronics and pipeline natural gas through the same Rio Grande crossing.