Pelosi pushes to keep tech’s legal shield out of trade agreement with Mexico and Canada

12/05/19 – CNBC

By Lauren Feiner

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pushing to keep a key legal shield for tech companies out of a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Thursday.

The effort could throw a wrench into progress Congress seemed to be making on the pact and would be a blow to tech companies who already fear losing the legal protection within the U.S. Just last week, Pelosi said House Democrats were “within range” of reaching a pact they can support for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which would replace NAFTA.

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Mexican business council blasts ‘unilateral’ labor reform push

12/02/19 – Reuters

By David Alire Garcia and Lizbeth Diaz

Mexico’s main business lobby sharply criticized a ruling party senator for what it described as a “unilateral” move to schedule a Tuesday vote on a labor reform that it described as a ban on subcontracting.

The Business Coordinating Council (CCE) said in statement issued late on Monday that Sen. Napoleon Gomez, a member of leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s MORENA party, had scheduled a committee vote on the measure without any dialogue with business leaders.

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Arizona-Mexico trade relationship continues to boost border economies

12/02/19 – Chamber Business News

By Graham Bosch

Mexico is Arizona’s top trading partner, accounting for about 30 percent of the state’s exports to foreign markets, according to an extensive ongoing study by the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that business leaders, trade experts and economists agree the cross-border relationship is of the utmost importance to Arizona when it comes to trade, manufacturing, education, safety, tourism and more.

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Mexico’s Clean Energy Sector Gets Renewable Credit Win

11/29/19  – Bloomberg

By Justin Villamil

Mexico’s clean energy industry was handed a big win on Thursday after a federal court reversed an earlier decision on a renewable credits rule change that critics said would have been damaging to the sector.

After clean energy companies, including American power generator AES Corp. and Italian utility giant Enel SpA, filed for injunctions in courts across Mexico, a federal judge in Mexico City reversed a lower court decision of the rule change on Thursday, according to people familiar with the case who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.

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Mexico bars shipment of glyphosate pesticide

Photo by Martin Lopez on Pexels.com

11/25/19 – AP News

The Mexican government says it won’t allow a 1,000-ton shipment of the pesticide glyphosate into the country, citing health and environmental concerns.

Mexico became the latest in a string of countries to announce bans on glyphosate, the active ingredient in weed killer Roundup.

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Florida and Mexican Seaports Agree to Enhance Trade

11/21/19 – The Maritime Executive

On behalf of Florida’s 15 seaports, the Florida Ports Council has entered into a Letter of Intent with the Coordination of Ports and Merchant Marine of Mexico to maintain relations that promote international commerce and economic development.

Mexico is Florida’s second largest trading partner. In 2018, trade between Mexico and Florida reached $10.8 billion. According to the United States Department of Commerce, this was an 8.3 percent increase over 2017 in exports alone.

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Parts with passports: how free trade drives GM’s engines

Photo by Mike on Pexels.com

11/18/19 – Reuters

By Nick Carey

Long before the pistons for General Motors Co V-6 engines reach the U.S. No. 1 automaker’s Romulus, Michigan plant, they are seasoned international travelers.

Powdered aluminum from Tennessee is shipped to Pennsylvania and forged at high temperatures into connecting rods for the pistons, which are then sent to Canada to be shaped and polished. They are then shipped to Mexico for sub-assembly and finally the finished pistons are loaded onto trucks bound for Romulus to become part of a GM V-6 engine.

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Mexico Has a Productivity Problem

11/18/19 – Bloomberg

By Eric Martin

Walk down the side-streets just off Mexico City’s iconic Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, and you’ll see dozens of examples of something that is holding back growth: the informal economy.

Workers on the taco carts or shoe-shine stands don’t pay taxes, foregoing the benefits of a social safety net. And they often sit idle for most of the day.

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Record Year at Pharr Bridge

 

Photo by Quintin Gellar on Pexels.com

10/21/19 – The Monitor

By Mitchell Ferman

The lines at the bridge lasted more than 10 hours at times. “It was bad,” Martin Arteaga said in early April, after crossing a load of bell peppers over the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in his truck from Mexico.

It was the beginning of a slog of a spring at the Pharr bridge, when trucks and passenger vehicles sat on the 3.2-mile span in jammed lines that President Donald Trump threatened to close at the border in late March. Not long after, hundreds of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were reassigned from ports of entry to assist Border Patrol agents with immigration duties.

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Emirates says airline can still fly to Mexico, despite court ruling

10/13/19 – Reuters

By Alexander Cornwell and Daina Beth Solomon

Emirates still has the right to offer flights to Mexico City, the Dubai state-owned carrier said on Sunday, after Mexican airline Aeromexico disputed an agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Mexico.

Emirates said earlier this year it would start daily flights to Mexico City International Airport via Barcelona in December, the airline’s first service to Mexico.

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