Port of Laredo becomes US busiest out pacing Los Angeles not even counting the dope

Texas Monthly:

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As of March 2019, the largest port in the United States is no longer the Port of Los Angeles but rather the Port of Laredo.

Laredo, which is a primary port of entry for trade with Mexico, saw its trade spike by nearly 10 percent from February to March, while Los Angeles’s dropped by a similar figure over that same time, according to Forbes. Laredo had more than $20 billion in trade pass through its port of entry, while in L.A., they were down to $19.66 billion. The key takeaway surely ought to be much more about how this reflects the changing shape of global trade more than a year into a trade war between the world’s two largest economies than it is about Texas’s ongoing cold war with California—but let’s leave that all aside, because Los Angeles just lost out to Laredo, and we’re here to celebrate it.

Los Angeles, as the nation’s second largest city, is a complicated place. So much of American culture comes from the city, the weather is perfect, and nobody is happy. Laredo, meanwhile, is a city of 260,000, which makes it the eightieth largest in the U.S.—just behind St. Petersburg, Florida, and just ahead of the bustling metropolis that is Buffalo, New York. The two cities don’t often find themselves in direct competition, but if you place them head-to-head, there are a few other areas where Laredo just straight-up beats Los Angeles.

We wouldn’t be so myopic as to declare that Mexican food in Southern California is bad. Los Angeles is a vibrant multicultural city that does pretty much every kind of cuisine well, and while the tacos might not be what those raised on flour tortillas and queso dream of when they close their eyes at night, it’s better to think of the differences between Texas’s and California’s Mexican food as regional distinctions rather than a question of superiority.

That said, Laredo’s tacos go on this list because Laredo’s tacos belong right at the top of just about any list. Taco Palenque, the finest fast food taco in the country, hails from the Gateway City and spreads its gospel as far as Houston and New Braunfels. Pretty much any Mexican restaurant you visit in Laredo is going to have food that you’d have to beg someone to clue you into in a city like Los Angeles (or Austin or Dallas or even Houston, frankly). How synonymous with “good Mexican food” is Laredo? LAX Airport literally has a restaurant in it called “Cantina Laredo.” We rest our case.
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There is more.

While the article does not talk about the dope, across the river is Nuevo Laredo where a bloody war has been fought for decades over the transit route to the I-35 corridor for drug distribution which begins in Laredo.  Nevertheless, it does appear that Laredo also gets a lot of legitimate traffic through its port of entry.  And the city can brag about its tacos.