COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Texas\u2019 brand-new Secretary of State made his first major appearance in the Brazos Valley Tuesday night, telling a crowd at Texas A&M\u2019s Bush School that fixing everyday bottlenecks at the Texas-Mexico border is a top priority as he settles into the job.<\/p>\n
Robert S. Howden, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott in July, spoke at the Mosbacher Institute\u2019s \u201cConversations in Public Policy\u201d event, capping off a full day of panels on Texas-Mexico trade, energy, agriculture and security. Howden now serves as the state\u2019s 116th Secretary of State, a role that includes acting as the governor\u2019s senior advisor on border and Mexican affairs, in addition to overseeing Texas elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still brand new to this job,\u201d Howden told the audience. \u201cI\u2019ve been on the job about two months. So, I just started it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite being new to the role, Howden said he\u2019s already zeroing in on practical, on-the-ground problems, including a Border Patrol checkpoint north of Laredo that funnels traffic down to just two lanes, slowing commercial trucking traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s issues like that that come up in my job that I\u2019m going to take a good, hard look at,\u201d Howden said. \u201cBut it\u2019s keeping up with the demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described a recent visit to Laredo, where he said growth is outpacing infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaredo is a fantastic place,\u201d Howden said. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to keep up with the pace… trade\u2019s important in Texas. Trade\u2019s important with Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howden told the crowd that Mexico has been Texas\u2019 largest trading partner for nearly two decades, and that the two sides did more than $300 billion in trade last year alone. He said Texas sells more goods to Mexico than any other U.S. state sells to any single country in the world.<\/p>\n
That trade moves through 34 ports of entry along the state\u2019s 1,240-mile border with Mexico, according to Howden, who said a significant share of all U.S.-Mexico trade passes through Texas.<\/p>\n
Howden said the state is also focused on workforce needs tied to that growth, including expanding trade schools for jobs like electricians and welders, fields he said are in high demand as data centers and manufacturing projects expand across the state.<\/p>\n
Howden isn\u2019t new to Texas politics. Before his appointment, he served as a senior advisor to Abbott and as the governor\u2019s director of legislative affairs. He has worked for four Texas governors over his career, including a role helping build the state\u2019s economic development incentive programs under former Gov. Rick Perry.<\/p>\n
But the Secretary of State role, and its focus on the Texas-Mexico relationship, is new territory in some respects, Howden acknowledged. Asked how the state plans to attract more investment from Mexico specifically, Howden said he didn\u2019t have a full answer yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a new one for me,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I\u2019ll have to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s forum also featured panels on agricultural trade, energy and infrastructure, and industrial competitiveness with business and policy leaders from both sides of the border.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KBTX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Texas\u2019 brand-new Secretary of State made his first major appearance in the Brazos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153573,153572,133291,4517,27,29,28,11449,153574],"class_list":["post-444804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-mexico-relationship","tag-mexico-us-trade","tag-robert-howden","tag-secretary-of-state","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-trade","tag-trade-relationship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}