By RICARDO CASTILLO Financial desperation and back-to-work decision-making just as Mexico enters what is expected to be the peak of its covid-19 pandemic are definitely poorly timed. But then, that’s the reality the Mexican government is facing today. As of Tuesday, May 12, Mexico’s National Health Council announced the approval of four agreements for a progressive lifting of stay-at-home measures
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By EARL ANTHONY WAYNE, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico
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By RICARDO CASTILLO This is the brief story of a tempest in a teapot, along with a brief analysis of what the political situation in Mexico is in the times of covid-19, at least for the day. The latest political snafu is a lot of fun, but it was also meaty enough to make for 24 more hours of political
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By RICARDO CASTILLO USMCA to Take Effect July 1 The trilateral trade treaty known in the United States as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), in México as the T-MEC, and in Canada by the same old term as the previous accord, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), will most definitely go into effect on July 1. The announcement was
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Extended Isolation The full containment of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico will require much time than originally planned, so the stay-home period may have to be extended from the original April 30 to May 30, said Public Health Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell, who is in charge of monitoring the spread of the disease. The announcement was made during
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By RICARDO CASTILLO Frustrated Entrepreneurs Business and politics have intentionally been kept centralized in Mexico City for decades in Mexico. But that arrangement seems to be falling apart as a result of the divide between commerce and industrial chambers leaders, specifically, Carlos Salazar Lomelín of the Business Coordination Council (CCE), Francisco Cervantes of the Industrial Chambers Confederation (Concamin) and Antonio
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By RICARDO CASTILLO The Mexican Senate draft of the new labor subcontracting or outsourcing bill project bill has undergone some major changes so far. It’s also been the subject of deep divisions among senators, some wanting to go the radical route and others obeying lobbying efforts from both foreign and national companies that have so far gotten their way in
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By RICARDO CASTILLO There’s an old practice in Mexican political journalism known as “tying knives” (“amarrando navajas,” if you want the Spanish term.) The term is not political in origin. In fact, it actually refers to the moment before a cockfight when the people in charge of making the birds fight tie a steel blade to the roosters’ spurs. Consequently,
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XINHUA A renewed North American free-trade agreement alone cannot spur Mexican economic growth in Mexico, the Private Sector Center for Economic Studies (CEESP) said in its weekly report Sunday, Dec. 15. To accomplish growth, Mexico will need to take additional measures, namely modernizing its productive sector, the CEESP report said. “Once it takes effect, the agreement is expected to have a significant
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By RICARDO CASTILLO What’s going both in the Mexican Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the implementation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)? U.S. House Democrats want to include additional clauses that Mexico will not accept. Namely, they want to have inspectors included in union elections to guarantee that the pact’s labor chapter is enforced. In Mexico, mining
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