The week opened with highways in gridlock as vacationers returned home from the Holy Week holidays. Truckers and agricultural producers launched a national transport strike on Monday, blockading major roads across at least nine states into Tuesday. By mid-week, the peso made a comeback as Washington and Tehran edged toward a ceasefire deal, a development President Sheinbaum openly welcomed at her Wednesday press conference, citing lower oil prices as a direct benefit to Mexico.
By Friday, Sheinbaum’s landmark electoral reform had cleared its final constitutional hurdle, and a new poll showed her approval rating at a record high of 79.5%. When asked about it at Thursday’s mañanera, she quipped, “Every time a poll comes out, our political adversaries get very angry,” adding that opponents had accused her government of buying up all the polling companies. “Just imagine how much we would have spent,” she joked.
Didn’t have time to catch this week’s top stories? Here’s what you missed.
Sheinbaum’s electoral reform becomes law
The week’s biggest political headline came Friday, when President Sheinbaum announced that her “Plan B” electoral reform had cleared its final hurdle, ratified by 20 of Mexico’s 32 state legislatures — enough to make it constitutional.
Sheinbaum’s hard-fought electoral reform clears its final hurdle: Friday’s mañanera recapped
The reform had already cleared the lower house of Congress earlier in the week and the Senate the month prior. Sheinbaum framed it as a package aimed squarely at dismantling special privileges for politicians, pointing to six key achievements: a ban on consecutive reelection, an anti-nepotism provision preventing relatives from succeeding officials, reduced budgets for state legislatures and the Senate, fewer municipal councilors, the elimination of generous pensions for former officials and slashed salaries for electoral authorities.
The reform will now be certified by the Senate before being published in Mexico’s official gazette.
The peso perks up
The Mexican peso notched seven consecutive days of gains between March 30 and April 9, appreciating more than 4% to close Thursday at 17.36 to the dollar.
The surge was driven in large part by a two-week ceasefire deal reached between the United States and Iran, which weakened the dollar and boosted appetite for higher-risk currencies like the peso. According to Banco Base’s director of economic analysis, the Wednesday gain was the largest single-day appreciation since April 2025, when the Trump administration announced a pause on its highest reciprocal tariffs.
By Friday morning, the currency had strengthened further to 17.26 per dollar. The good news came with a caveat: INEGI reported that annual headline inflation climbed to 4.59% in March, its second straight month above the Bank of Mexico’s 2–4% target range.
Investment and consumption slump
INEGI data also showed that both gross fixed investment and private consumption declined in January, casting a shadow over the domestic economic outlook.
Investment fell 1.1% month-on-month — snapping a three-month recovery streak — and was down 2.2% annually, extending a run of 17 consecutive months of negative annual figures. The main drag came from machinery and equipment, which slumped 8% year-on-year, suggesting companies continued to defer new productive assets amid uncertainty. Private consumption, which accounts for roughly 65% of GDP, fell 1.6% on a monthly basis — its steepest recent drop — though it remained up 2.7% year-on-year. Spending on imported goods led the monthly decline, falling 6.8%. The figures are a sobering contrast to Mexico’s investment boom years of 2023 and 2024, when gross fixed investment grew 19.7% and 3.4%, respectively.
Kearney’s puts Mexico back into the global top 20 for FDI
On a more encouraging note, Kearney’s 2026 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index placed Mexico at 19th globally— a jump of six spots from 25th the year before, re-entering the top 20 for only the second time since 2020.
Kearney’s managing partner in Mexico credited the country’s position within the USMCA trade bloc and nearshoring momentum as key drivers, alongside the optimism of senior business executives. The climb was powered in part by a record FDI haul of $40.87 billion in 2025. The United States and Canada ranked first and second, respectively, while Mexico was one of only two countries in the index improving as rapidly, the other being Singapore. Analysts note a significant caveat, however: Mexico ranks at the bottom of the top 25 for technological innovation, which Kearney’s survey identified as the single most important factor for global investors.
Regulatory efficiency and legal certainty on property rights were also flagged as areas requiring attention.
Mexico’s trade advantage over China and Canada widens
U.S. Census Bureau data confirmed Mexico’s dominance as America’s top trade partner in early 2026, with two-way trade reaching $147.32 billion in January and February — up 6.8% annually, even as total U.S. trade with all countries declined 4.5%.
Mexico’s share of the U.S. import market climbed to a record 16.9%, up from 13.8% a year earlier. The contrast with China was stark: Chinese exports to the U.S. fell 45.4% in the period, with China’s share of the U.S. import market collapsing from 12.1% to just 6.6% — the lowest U.S.-China two-way trade figure for the opening months of any year since 2009.
The auto sector was at the heart of that story. Mexico’s 50% tariff on Chinese-made cars, which took effect Jan. 1, sent imports plummeting 45.3% in January compared to a year earlier, and down 82.3% from the November peak.
Mexico went from the world’s top importer of Chinese-made cars to 16th in a matter of weeks. Sales of Chinese car brands in Mexico, however, surged 25.3% in the first quarter of 2026 — likely drawing down pre-tariff inventory — with Geely recording a 272% annual increase and MG selling over 14,500 units. China’s Commerce Ministry warned it reserves the right to take countermeasures against Mexico’s new duties.
Investments and infrastructure announcements
Several significant investment announcements landed during the week:
- GAC announced its plans to become the first Chinese automaker to assemble vehicles in Mexico, with operations expected to begin in the second half of 2026. No location or investment figure was disclosed, but the move is widely seen as a tariff-circumvention play within the USMCA framework.
- Kia announced a $600 million investment in Nuevo León to expand its EV production.
- CFE approved a grid connection for a 130-MW wind farm in Tamaulipas by Vancouver-based Revolve Renewable Power, part of a broader clean energy push by Mexico’s Energy Ministry.
- Puebla’s airport announced an expansion plan that will include 12 new domestic and international routes, a hotel, bus station and shopping center.
- Walmart announced plans to reach 99% of Mexican households by 2030 through a US $2.4B regional investment.
Rescue mission continues in Sinaloa
Rescue teams pulled a second miner alive from the flooded Santa Fe mine in Rosario, Sinaloa, nearly two weeks after a tailings dam collapse on March 25 trapped four workers underground.
Francisco Zapata Nájera, 42, was located at a depth of 300 meters surrounded by water and extracted before dawn on Wednesday in an operation that took nearly half a day. Army divers, operating with near-zero visibility, used pumps capable of extracting 34,000 liters per hour to clear a path. Shortly after Zapata was brought to the surface and airlifted to a hospital in Mazatlán, rescuers found the body of a third miner. A fourth worker remains unaccounted for, and officials say operations will continue until all are located.
A new foreign minister takes the reins
Roberto Velasco Álvarez was officially confirmed as Mexico’s new Foreign Relations Minister by the Senate in an 81-30 vote on Wednesday, and held his first working call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio the following day.
The two discussed migration and security — the defining issues in the bilateral relationship — with Velasco characterizing the exchange as “productive and cordial.” The 38-year-old, who previously managed Mexico’s North America diplomatic portfolio, takes over from Juan Ramón de la Fuente at a pivotal moment, with USMCA review negotiations underway and ongoing U.S. tariff pressure on the agenda.
Good news roundup
🐋 Whales scored a legal win in the Gulf of California! A novel lawsuit naming the marine mammals as plaintiffs against large commercial vessels advanced in court, based on the principle that whales are entitled to a safe and livable habitat.
🏥 Mexico’s universal health service launched, with more Mexicans now able to sign up for cost-free coverage.
🌿 The Border BioBlitz is underway, inviting volunteers to help document biodiversity along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in an annual citizen-science effort.
🏫 President Sheinbaum announced new education infrastructure investments, directing resources toward school repairs and construction across the country.
✂️ Activists launched a hair donation campaign to help absorb oil damage in the Gulf, using donated hair to create booms that soak up petroleum spills.
🏊 San Luis Potosí’s David Olvera completed a nonstop open-water swim from Cozumel to Cancún.
Looking ahead
President Sheinbaum will make her first trip to Europe as president next week, flying to Barcelona for a one-day gathering of Latin American progressive leaders on April 18.
She will join the presidents of Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay and Spain’s prime minister — a group convened under the “Democracia Siempre” banner originally formed by former Chilean president Gabriel Boric. What the leaders plan to discuss was not disclosed.
Back home, Pemex is shaping up as one of the more stubborn headaches of the weeks ahead. The state oil company’s troubled Dos Bocas refinery on the Gulf Coast suffered its second fire in less than a month on Thursday, this time in a coke storage warehouse, just days after the company had to deny reports of a gas leak at the same site.
And in the Gulf, an oil spill whose cause the government says remains unknown — but which critics are calling a cover-up — is now present in coastal Tamaulipas and could soon reach Texas. Environmental groups insist satellite data shows the leak began in February from a Pemex subsea pipeline, a claim the company denies.
With official investigators still pointing to multiple possible sources and public anger mounting, the Gulf spill is fast becoming one of the most politically charged environmental stories in the country.
Mexico News Daily
This story contains summaries of original Mexico News Daily articles. The summaries were generated by Claude, then revised and fact-checked by a Mexico News Daily staff editor.
