Mexico Archive

The pollution hanging over Mexico City is nearing its worst levels in decades, a direct result of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s energy policies. To make matters worse, those policies also conflict with the current geopolitical environment, global environmental standards and the country’s trade agreement with the United States. AMLO, as the Mexican president is known, is an energy nationalist. He believes that the oil and natural gas found both underground and offshore in Mexico should be explored, developed and refined by its state-owned energy company, Pemex, rather than foreign conglomerates, and that it should be sold directly to […]

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, which entered into force on July 1, 2020, contains some of the most innovative trade standards in any free trade agreement to date. Negotiated under the Trump administration, USMCA passed the U.S. Congress with widespread bipartisan support, gained the approval of the AFL-CIO—the largest U.S. trade union—and could become a template in negotiations for other trade deals. Yet, since then, the U.S. has retreated from pursuing further free trade agreements, or FTAs, whether under former President Donald Trump, who was hostile to them, or his successor, President Joe Biden, who has historically viewed them more […]