Eyeing the headlines, Americans can be forgiven for seeing the US-Mexican border as little more than a putrid cheese cloth: immigrants keep getting through and the drug violence just barely keeps out. Going ‘beyond the border’, as the aptly named Great Decisions 2012 episode does, offers a more refined view of Mexico. Of course, Mexico […]
The G20 Finance Ministers meeting to take place this weekend in Mexico City comes at a time where Europe has begun to reduce their crisis, the US and its President is singing along with better economic numbers and BRICS nations continue to roll on despite slower growth in Brazil and inflationary issues in China. What […]
Before I head off to New Haven for Convergencias 2012, hosted by the Yale Mexican Students Association, I will reflect on 5 themes that define the inner-workings of America’s relationship with our Southern neighbor: 1. Trade between these two neighbors is symbiotic. In 2010, mutual trade reached $362 billion. As I discussed in my Great […]
Brazil has been affected in recent weeks by suggestions of a slow down in Brazil’s usually hot economy. Inflation in China also has received some attention. The result was that some market studies have been done on the BRICS and emerging economies showing that countries like Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam are doing quite well […]
Carlos Slim is well known in Latin America and abroad as one of, if not the wealthiest CEO in the world. He was even mentioned on the Colbert Report this past week introducing him to the American public as someone who’s net worth trumps that of Mitt Romney as well as that of Donald Trump. […]
While the eyes of the American public are often turned toward the Middle East or Asia on foreign policy matters, America’s interaction with Mexico is perhaps the most ingrained foreign policy relationship. The Foreign Policy Association (FPA) emphasizes this partnership in its 2012 Great Decisions Television Series, aired by PBS. In Episode 3 – “Beyond […]
Latin America’s technocrats spent the second half of 2011 on mushy footing, unsure what effect the euro zone crisis might have on the region and afraid that China might experience a “hard landing.” Now some of the region’s wonks are expressing more confidence. “Latin America has never been better equipped to move forward,” said Guillermo […]
Mexico’s presidential election, to be held July 1, looks like a foregone conclusion. President Felipe Calderón’s right-wing National Action Party (PAN) has fallen far out of favor due to Mexico’s terrible drug violence. In the past 5 years, the drug wars have killed over 45,000 people. The Northern border city of Ciudad Juarez had 300 […]
At 101 years old, the National Autonomous University of Mexico is one of Latin America’s premier universities, and one of its largest, with over 300,000 students enrolled. Last month, UNAM started posting its archives and teaching materials on the Internet—for free. See www.unamenlinea.unam.mx. In part, political pressure against the university is motivating the endeavor. UNAM […]
Latin America’s two largest economies started 2011 on different notes. Mexico’s growth was set to ring up about 4 percent, with drug violence clipping about a point off growth, according to BBVA Bancomer, and reliance on a weakening U.S. economy wielding another discount. In April, auto production, a key industry in Mexico, experienced a […]
Mexico’s peso has been topsy-turvy since October 2008. The classic explanation is that developing countries with open capital markets, like Mexico, get hurt by a flight to safety in times of global uncertainty. Sure enough, after the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the onset of the global financial crisis, the peso plummeted. It was a […]
In little over a week since officially entering Mexico’s 2012 Presidential contest, the campaign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) Enrique Peña Nieto already finds itself in full damage control following an embarrassing performance by the candidate during the presentation of his new book, and disparaging comments made by the candidate’s teenage daughter. While speaking […]
Mexico has been slow to mend from the repeated stabs of a drug war, declared in 2006, and the blunt pummel of America’s recession in 2008. But 2011 showed more signs of recovery than relapse. At least 40,000 Mexicans have been killed from drug-related violence over the past five years, and the number directly affected […]
Conventional wisdom holds that Mexico’s economy marches in lockstep with America’s. Mexico sends most of its exports to the US, after all, and Mexico is a middle class nation thanks in large part to the country’s integration into the North American economy. But on 22 November Mexico reported growth of 4.5 percent over the same […]
For the second time in President Calderon’s administration, a secretary of interior (Secretario de Gobernación) has died in what government officials have prematurely dubbed as an aerial accident. Francisco Blake Mora, the de-facto second in command in Mexico’s executive branch, was en route to a conference in the central state of Morelos when his helicopter […]