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We're going to turn it over now though to Bloomberg's Texas Bureau chief Julie Fine.
She's live in Dallas for a special interview that's with Texas Governor Greg Amos.
Julie, Governor Abbitt, thank you so much for being with us, my pleasure.
Thank you, Julie, Governor Abbot.
I do want to start with the news of the morning, the presidents saying that he will have some type of announcement on reciprocal terrorists in the coming days. Now he has paused tariffs for now on Mexico and Canada. Bloomberg had a story earlier this week in Laredo. Some port cities very concerned about these Are you concerned this will affect the Texas economy?
Not really, And there's a reason for that, and that's because he.
Had these tariff announcements during his first term as president and it didn't really impact the Texas economy. Listen, the Texas economy is the most powerful kind of in the United States, and we're able to withstand all types of challenges and we're going to make our way through this.
And so to be honest, I'm not really concerned about it.
Also, we've seen as everybody observed, and that is sometimes these tariffs are used strategically to achieve certain purposes, like what happened with Mexico and Canada, and it worked out to the United States advantage that certain border security measures were taken, especially by Mexico as well as Finnel issues concerning Canada. And so the United States is better now because of the use of tariffs and the ability to extract changes that are better.
For the country.
I have no doubt that'll be one of the goals that the President will pursue with regard to other potential tariffs.
And you met with the President this week, and border security of course the topic for you. You said that Texas would offer military bases forty two hundred beds for troops as well as four thousand jail cells. Now, border crossings are down in the state of Texas. What do you envision the long term plan for the state when it comes to the border.
So you know, obviously under President of Biden, Texas needed to take extraordinary steps because we had more than eleven million people across the border, more than during any president that see in the history of the United States of America, and as a result, we built two military bases.
On the border, one in Del Rio, one Inegle.
Pass, and we're working with the Trump administration to provide them holding facilities, detention facilities such as jail and prison cells as they apprehend people and prepare them for deportation. Bottom line, Texas is going to be all in to assist the Trump administration.
But we have seen illegal.
Crossings decrease to a trickle.
Here's what we need to see.
We need to see the ongoing success by the Trump administration reducing illegal immigration in a sustainable way, and that
will help Texas calibrate what our next actions will be. Obviously, it should not be incumbent upon Texas taxpayers or any state taxpayers to have to put that bill, and as a result, that's why I've been working with members of Congress, and I'll be back next week to talk to them, to them even more about ensuring that Texas is going to be able to have the resources we need and a reimbursement for some of the costs that we incurred to better secure the board.
I want to turn to the Texas economy, the newly formed Texas Stock Exchange just submitted for approval. Now, if companies dual list and the New York Stock Exchange and the Texas Stock Exchange or the Texas Stock Exchange in NASDAQ, how might that be different from other dual listings.
So it may be similar to what happened historically concerning dual listings. But here I think we will see a trend change in stock markets the way that we've seen a trend change in the economy.
Now, let's go back to the year two thousand for example.
You know, New York City was still the home of finance at that time, and other states were larger than Texas economically. These days, Texas has the most powerful economy in the United States. As well as we have more people moving here at than any other state. We have the fastest growing financial sector in the United States. Add to that, the way you could subdivide the United States
into quadrants. If you look at the Southeastern quadrant from Texas up to Oklahoma, over to the East Coast down to Florida, then back over to Texas, that quadrant represents almost all of the positive GDP growth in the United States of America, and as a result, there would be a kinship in that region for businesses that will be far more likely to be aligned with the stock exchange that we have in Texas than stock ex changes up
in New York. One last thing about that is we need to ensure access to capital or oil and gas businesses, businesses that are unique and important to just not only the state of Texas, but also to this entire region. We think that with the growing financial expertise that's going to be taking place in Dallas in Texas, as well as the growing accounting in the Southeastern quadrant, we're going to see a lot of businesses that are interested in
locating here for access to capital. And know this, You've already seen this jeerly with regard to incorporation. You've seen Space ex for example, move their in corporation from Delaware
to Texas. We're seeing a lot of that take place across the board with businesses because they see Texas as a more business friendly state, especially after math of a new law that assigned two years ago creating business course in the state of Texas that now rival and some businesses feel are superior to the business course in Delaware.
President Trump has a very broad education agenda, so do you, thirty three states have some form of school choice. If it happens in Texas, it would be the biggest. You've tried to get this done for several sessions this time around. Do you think Texas will have school choice at the end of the session.
I really do, and there's several reasons for it, one as you know, but others may not.
I campaigned this last election cycle to ensure that we elect to the Texas House representatives who are going to support school choice, and we were successful in that effort and now should have more than enough posts of the Texas House to get it passed. It's already passed the Texas Senate, it passed the Texas Senate just this week, and so we are on a pathway where it should get passed.
And know this, as you.
Pointed out, the school choice in one form or another exists in more than thirty states, and in those thirty states there's not been a collapsing of the public school system and said the public school system gets more competitive while at the very same time giving parents' ability to choose the school dis best for their child.
You were with the President earlier this week as he signed some executive orders along the lines of the Texas legislature. You have signed one as well regarding DEI that would be in public offices. There is also a ban on DEI in public universities. Are you hearing any feedback? What are companies saying to you about this?
I think companies are tired of having dictate some posts of them, such as DEI mandates, because their real goal is to be a success for their shareholders, and the way they can do that is to increase their paternal investment without having to invest in social programs.
That may not be beneficial to.
The bottom line. And so I will say I've heard nothing negative about it. I've heard many positive things about it. We need to get back to core value sets. But understand this also, and that is what di I programs often promote is discrimination. Is a violation of the US Constitution, of the Texas Constitution, of the civil rights laws to discriminate on the basis of race.
What many d I programs do.
They promote one race while not advancing others, and that violates the Constitution of Texas and federal laws.
In the very short time I have left with you, you touched on this earlier elon Musk arguably texas most well known residents. What do you think of his influence right now?
Listen, he's doing to the government sector what he's done in the private sector, and he's going to have success in the government sector like he has in the private sector. One thing we desperately need in our country is to shrink government. The government has grown too large, and one way to save money for taxpayers and make government more efficient is to do exactly what Elon is doing. And I think most Americans are very proud of what he's acomplishing.
Governor Rabbits, see you in Austin soon. Thanks so much for your time.