Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
02/26/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
It’s official – Mexico recorded its worst economic contraction since the Great Depression in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions ravaged the economy.
GDP plunged 8.5% last year, according to final, revised data published Thursday by the national statistics agency Inegi.
02/23/2021
Source: CNN
Along the beaches of Mexico, typically teeming with vacationers, there is a struggle between two powerful forces that won’t be going anywhere anytime soon: The very real concern for health and safety during the pandemic and an equally valid concern for economic survival.
Though Mexico has logged more than 180,000 Covid-19 deaths, it has some of the world’s loosest entry requirements for foreigners. Visitors aren’t required to submit negative test results, and there is no mandatory quarantine.
1/15/2021
Source: Bloomberg
The women of Mexico already faced the worst economic prospects in Latin America. Now the pandemic threatens to sink them even further, aggravating chronic inequality and dragging down the country’s fortunes.
Almost two-thirds of the nation’s job losses during the outbreak fell on women, according to government data. These setbacks are compounded by the government’s failure to support parents during the crisis, while a lack of fiscal stimulus means any economic recovery depends mostly on male-dominated heavy industries that export.
17/18/2020
Source: Al Jazeera
The Mexican government announced the country’s daily minimum wage will rise by 15 percent in January to the equivalent of about $7 a day.
The new wage still amounts to less than $1 an hour. But the increase is well above the country’s current 3.3 percent inflation rate.
12/10/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s central bank on Thursday hit back against a draft law moving through Congress, saying the legislation sold as a fillip for migrants jeopardized its independence and could force it to handle the proceeds of drug cartels.
Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday passed the bill that would make the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) buy up cash that commercial banks cannot return to the financial system. That, critics say, could mean the bank has to absorb money made by organized crime.
12/07/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday nominated his former campaign chief Tatiana Clouthier to replace Graciela Marquez as economy minister, a change which could give new impetus to his efforts to repair bruised ties with business.
Clouthier, a federal congresswoman and scion of a notable political family, played a major role in Lopez Obrador’s 2018 election campaign. But she initially opted not to be part of the federal government when he took office in December that year.
11/30/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s Finance Minister Arturo Hererra on Monday announced a second package of 29 infrastructure investments assembled between the government and the private sector worth some 228 billion Mexican pesos ($11.4 billion).
The package follows an initial 297-billion-peso raft of investments set out last month, and heralds a further thawing in what have often been frosty relations between Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and business groups.
11/26/2020
Source: Bloomberg
Mexico’s economy grew at the fastest pace in at least three decades in the third quarter, as a surge in manufacturing to meet U.S. demand helped claw back a portion of the output lost since last year.
Gross domestic product rose 12.1% from the previous quarter, according to final data released by the national statistics institute Thursday. The expansion, the best in data going back to 1990, was slightly higher than the 12% growth both estimated by economists in a Bloomberg survey and also recorded in preliminary data published last month.
11/11/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Mexico’s finance ministry on Wednesday celebrated Fitch Ratings’ decision not to cut its sovereign rating, after widespread criticism of the government’s refusal to unleash fiscal stimulus during the pandemic.
The ratings agency had earlier affirmed the sovereign rating of Latin America’s second-largest economy at BBB-, one notch above speculative grade, or junk, with a stable outlook.
10/28/2020
Source: Al Jazeera
Mexico City, Mexico – Five years ago, Donald Trump kicked off his first presidential campaign by saying that Mexico was sending crime, drugs and rapists to the United States. He thrust the US’s southern neighbour into the electoral spotlight and kept it there, making his infamous promise to build a border wall paid for by Mexico a cornerstone of his campaign.
Outrage roiled in Mexico then: pinata stores routinely stocked a Trump model so that Mexicans could buy it and give it a beating. There were comedy plays railing against him, an anti-Trump video game created by Mexican designers and even an ass dressed as Donald for the country’s annual donkey festival. All of that counted for nothing, because candidate Trump became President Trump and continued a fractious relationship with Mexico’s then-President Enrique Pena Nieto.
