President López Obrador visits the Pemex oil refinery in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas.
The modernization of Mexico’s six existing oil refineries, the construction of a new one on the Tabasco coast and the purchase of one in the United States are crucial to achieving energy self-sufficiency, President López Obrador reiterated during a tour of the Pemex refinery in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas.
The president said his administration is seeking to increase Mexico’s refining capacity so that importing gasoline is no longer necessary. He has previously pledged that the country will be self-sufficient in gasoline by 2023, the year the Dos Bocas refinery in Paraíso, Tabasco, is slated to start operations.
“Just imagine! If a foreign nation decided not to sell gasoline to us it would be chaos, we only have reserves for 10 days,” López Obrador said in Ciudad Madero on Friday.
Mexico must aim for self-sufficiency in food and fuel so that it’s not dependent on “any foreign nation” or “any power,” he said, apparently referring to the United States.
“We’re carrying out a profound change in … petroleum policy; the fundamental objective is to no longer sell crude oil [to foreign refineries] … but rather process all the raw material in our country,” López Obrador said.
The president asserted that the quest for self-sufficiency will generate jobs in Mexico and rejected any suggestion that buying gasoline abroad is cheaper.
“It’s much better to produce what we consume, not bring it [into the country],” he declared, noting that the cost of transporting gasoline into Mexico increases its retail price.
During his refinery visit, López Obrador also sought to reassure Pemex workers that their jobs and working conditions are safe while he remains in office.
“There won’t be any dismissals, we’re not going to tear up your collective contract. You’ll retire at the age agreed to in the contract,” he said. Previous governments had planned to increase the retirement age.
“… We’re also going to ensure that there is union democracy, that everyone … decides who they want to represent them. No more corrupt leaders but rather leaders that represent you and defend you,” the president said.
López Obrador also visited the Pemex refineries in Salamanca, Guanajuato, and Tula, Hidalgo, over the weekend.
The other refineries currently being upgraded are located in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca; Minatitlán, Veracruz; and Cadereyta, Nuevo León.
López Obrador announced in May that Pemex had reached a deal to buy Shell Oil Company’s 50% share in the jointly-owned Deer Park oil refinery near Houston, Texas, for US $600 million. The president is aiming to boost the role the state oil company and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) play in Mexico’s energy market, at the expense of private and foreign companies that entered after the previous federal government opened up the sector.
George worked at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, California. (Shutterstock)
The United States reopened its land border with Mexico on Monday, almost 20 months after it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The land border with Canada also reopened, as did flights from 33 countries, including the U.K., much of Europe, China, Brazil and South Africa.
U.S. authorities are only allowing entry to people who had vaccines approved by the World Health Organization. The Sputnik V and CanSino vaccines, administered to millions of people in Mexico, are not currently on that list.
Mexicans were largely banned from crossing the border during the pandemic, which transformed the lives of many who live in border cities. Seeing family and friends, medical appointments or shopping over the border were all ruled out. U.S. citizens, on the other hand, enjoyed greater freedom to travel between the two countries.
Traffic levels at ports and in the land crossings were expected to register millions of travelers, hitting levels seen prior to the pandemic, the newspaper El País reported, but Monday’s traffic was not as heavy as expected, according to several media reports.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that visa holders should bring proof of vaccination and verbally indicate their reason for travel at the border.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the reopening was a positive decision. “We are pleased to take another step toward easing travel restrictions at our borders in a manner that strengthens our economy and protects the health and safety of the American public … We continue working closely with our international partners to sustainably implement new rules for resuming travel,” he said.
The accepted vaccines for nonessential travel are: Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Covishield, Sinopharm and Sinovac.
People travelling for essential reasons are not required to be vaccinated until January 2022, when a new phase of border regulations will take force.
As for under 18s, they will need a negative COVID-19 test taken a maximum of three days before departure, if they are traveling with a vaccinated adult. However, if they are traveling alone or with an unvaccinated adult, they must submit a negative test carried out 24 hours before the trip.
Grandmother Martha Ochoa Moreno, 68, from Ciudad Juárez, was one of many people reunited with loved ones on Monday. She had not seen her 28-year-old granddaughter, Laura Tinajero, since the border closed. Prior to the closure she crossed several times a week to shop and visit family.
“There is nothing like being able to hug [loved ones]; video calls helped us a lot all during those months, but it’s not the same. Today I will finally be able to hug my granddaughter,” she told the Dallas Morning News.
Another relieved family member was 60-year-old Ramón Delgado, from Chihuahua, who saw his sister Bertha Galván, 71, an El Paso resident.
“I was very happy because [we had] not seen each other for a long time since the pandemic began,” said Delgado. “My sister got COVID, not me, and I was scared. And that’s why I really wanted to see her and give her a hug,” he added.
“There is a lot of emotion to finally be able to hug him; the truth was I was afraid. I thought they were not going to let people through. When he called me and said, ‘I’m here,’ I didn’t believe it,” Galván said.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico warned that wait times at borders are expected to increase, and that travelers should plan for longer than normal wait times and exercise patience.
Workshop instructor and book coach Amy Gottlieb’s novel The Beautiful Possible was a finalist for a National Jewish Book award.
Both accomplished and aspiring authors know that deciding who will tell their story is a major decision that can make the difference between mundane and quality storytelling. Just as important are knowing how to effectively revise a story and how to deal with rejection.
The San Miguel Literary Sala will cover all these topics in four different online workshops offered this month between November 8 and November 11.
Workshop times below are all in Central Standard Time:
November 8 and 10, 5:30–7 p.m. — Amy Gottlieb: “Music and Texture: A Creative Approach to Revision.” Revision is often viewed alternately as dreary and ruthless, yet it can be a creative and transformative process when you re-envision a draft in terms of its internal logic, its music, and its patterns. Gottlieb will help participants break down revision into a three-part process, exploring creative techniques to help find the vitality in your work and make it shine.
November 9 and 11, 3–4:30 p.m. — Nadine Kenney Johnstone: “Writing your Truth in the Personal Essay and Memoir.” If you want to write about your past, it’s crucial to dig deep enough to write your truth, which sometimes means overcoming worries about how people will respond, especially if they are one of the characters you are writing about. By studying other truth-telling writers, participants will learn how to silence their inner critic and tell the story they must.
November 9 and 11, 5:30–7 p.m. — Elizabeth Kracht: “Rejection Bingo! How to Improve Your Manuscript Through Rejection.” Learning how to use rejection to achieve your publishing goals can help get that book accepted for publication. Kracht will teach you participants to change their perspective on rejection in a fun and interactive way and use it to their advantage in the publishing industry. She will also cover the top 10 editorial reasons for rejection.
November 10, 3–6:20 p.m. — Annie Tucker: “Who’s in Charge Here? Choosing the Right Point of View for Your Story.” Tucker will help writers identify all points of view available to them and determine which one to use for consistent story narration. A series of exercises will help participants plumb the depths of their characters’ minds and ensure that readers have the reliable narrators they need to guide them through a novel.
Three Mexican sports stars had a successful weekend – in a Nevada boxing ring, on a Mexico City racing track and on a Quintana Roo golf course.
Saúl Álvarez won his unification title fight against American boxer Caleb Plant with an 11th round technical knockout. With his victory, the red-haired boxer widely known as “Canelo” (Cinnamon) became the first undisputed super middleweight champion.
“Getting here hasn’t been easy but with you, my team and my family we’ve come very far,” Álvarez said after the bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
“It’s an achievement for my family and team but above all for Mexico. This means a lot to me and a lot for the history of Mexico,” Canelo said, noting that he is just the sixth boxer to hold all four belts in a single weight division.
Some 3,000 kilometers to the south, Red Bull-Honda driver Sergio “Checo” Pérez finished third behind his teammate Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the Mexico City Formula One Grand Prix, held Sunday at the Hermanos Rodríguez Autodrome.
It was the first time that a Mexican had appeared on the podium at his home Grand Prix. Pérez, who has had two F1 wins in his decade-long career in motor racing’s most prestigious championship, described his third place as an “incredible” achievement, although he lamented that he and Verstappen just missed out on the 1-2 positions they were looking for.
Golfer Carlos Ortiz went one better than Pérez on Sunday, finishing runner up at the World Wide Technology Championship, a PGA event held at the El Camaleón golf course near Playa del Carmen. Ortiz finished with a five under par 66 on Sunday to end the tournament at -19, four strokes behind Viktor Hovland of Norway, who won the event for a second consecutive year.
Another Mexican, Abraham Ancer, finished tied for seventh with a four-round score of -15. Ortiz rose 29 positions to 49th in the world golf rankings as a result of his second placing.
While there was plenty of cause for celebration in Mexico, there was even more reason for jubilation in Guadalajara, where Álvarez, Pérez and Ortiz were all born.
In addition to being tapatíos, as natives of Mexico’s second city are known, all three men were born at the start of the 1990s. Canelo and Checo are both 31, while Ortiz, who doesn’t (yet) have a publicly known catchy nickname, is the youngest of the three at 30.
The crash caused a large fire that engulfed several vehicles, burning occupants to death. Twitter
Nineteen people were killed and at least three others were injured in a horrific accident at a toll plaza on the Mexico City-Puebla highway on Saturday afternoon.
A transport truck traveling toward the capital lost its brakes and crashed through the San Marcos Huixtoco tollbooths in México state before colliding head-on with numerous cars heading in the opposite direction.
The crash precipitated a large fire that engulfed several vehicles and burned their occupants to death.
A deputy fire department chief in Chalco, the municipality where the accident occurred, said the vehicles’ own gasoline appeared to have fueled the blaze. The truck was carrying 6,000 liters of textile glue, but that substance isn’t flammable, Adrián Díaz Chávez said.
Firefighters arrived at the toll plaza shortly after the crash and managed to control the fire almost 40 minutes later. Capufe, the federal agency responsible for highways and bridges, said late Saturday that 19 people — including the truck driver — had died in the accident. Two of the deceased were children.
The San Marcos Huixtoco toll plaza remained close for seven hours after the crash, causing traffic to back up in both directions. It reopened just before 8:00 p.m.
A similar accident occurred at the same toll plaza in 2019 but no one was hurt. A truck transporting sugar also crashed into the toll booths in September in an accident that claimed the life of one toll collector and one other person, while a tanker carrying molasses suffered the same fate in October. Three people were injured in the latter crash.
Vehicles traveling toward Mexico City traverse a pronounced downward slope before reaching the toll plaza. There are emergency escape ramps before the toll booths, but the truck that crashed on Saturday, and others involved in accidents at the same location, obviously failed to make use of them.
The fair was shut down a week before it was due to close.
A México state fair was shut down after a cartel followed through on its threat of violence against performing musicians.
A bus carrying members of a band was attacked by gunfire on Friday following threats against musicians performing at the Metepec Fair in México state. Organizers then suspended the event, which had a star lineup of Mexican musicians.
The bus in which the band La Adictiva was traveling was attacked on the Toluca-Palmillas highway.
The threat was made on two narco banners hung on overpasses around Metepec on Friday morning. Signed by the Familia Michoacana it was directed at fair promoter Mario García in a possible case of unpaid extortion.
“Urgent message: We inform all the artists who were going to perform in the Metepec Fair not to perform at that venue, to avoid the spilling of innocent blood including theirs … due to the actions of that bum, the businessman Mario García, they are prohibited from performing. Respect our organization and we will respect your lives. Familia Michoacana,” the banners read.
The fair’s organizing company MG Diamante announced the suspension after artists pulled out following the attack. Musicians Pancho Barraza, Christian Nodal, Julión Álvarez, La Arrolladora and Alfredo Olivas were among those set to perform.
“We are concerned about the safety and integrity of all attendees, press, artists, employees and workers who work with us at this event,” Diamante said in a statement.
Security authorities detained two people in relation to the narco banners, but no arrests were reported for the attack.
A food vendor with a stall inside the venue said he was frustrated at the lost income. “This pandemic has cost us a lot … without events. These sales are what we live for. We had a week [of operation] but we did not get back all that we’d invested,” he said.
The fair opened October 29 and was scheduled to run until November 14.
Refunds for canceled shows will be available at the box office on November 15.
'I have researched the Aztecs and their civilization for half a century,' anthropologist Frances Berdan says. 'That said, I’m still learning new things about them.'
When anthropologist Frances Berdan did fieldwork with indigenous weavers in Puebla’s Sierra Norte, she made a surprising discovery: although the women weavers she observed were using store-bought thread or wool alongside the once-preferred cotton, they still made cloth using traditional backstrap looms as Aztec girls and women had done centuries before.
This firsthand experience is one of many ways she finds continuity and complexity in the narrative of the famed empire in her new book, The Aztecs.
“I have researched the Aztecs and their civilization for half a century,” Berdan said in an email interview. “That said, I’m still learning new things about them.”
Part of the Lost Civilizations series published by Reaktion Books, The Aztecs suggests new ways of seeing its subject: instead of focusing on leaders like the ill-fated Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, she expands her lens to include the people they governed.
“Historical accounts generally focus on the powerful – kings and nobles,” Berdan, a professor emerita of anthropology at California State University in San Bernardino said. “Fortunately, some of the ethnohistoric records that we have also address a wide range of people — men and women, adults and children, priests and teachers, farmers and artisans, merchants and porters … doctors. And slaves. And more.”
Wealthy Mexica merchants display fine textiles, precious feathers and valuable stone adornments. From Book IX of the Florentine Codex. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
The book uses artifacts as a jumping-off point for a wider narrative about the empire and its people. One such artifact is a feathered shield that wound up in Habsburg Austria. Its feathers came from multiple bird species, from quetzals to spoonbills. It depicts an image of a canine figure that might be a coyote, Berdan says. Only four such shields survived the conquest.
In addition to feathered shields, Aztec artisans made objects ranging from reed mats to obsidian knives. Some items were bartered on the empire’s frontiers in locations that Berdan describes as international trading centers.
This is the author’s second consecutive book that seeks to broaden discussion of the civilization, following Everyday Life in the Aztec World, also released this year. She also has written a book on Aztec archaeology and ethnohistory and co-edited a volume about the Codex Mendoza, a manuscript written around 20 years after the conquest by indigenous authors and depicting Mexica history, society and daily life before colonization.
Her latest book “not only presents the general ‘big picture’ of the Aztecs as an empire and civilization but also spends a great deal of time discussing the activities, behaviors and beliefs of the people themselves, whether they be nobles or commoners,” she said. “The book focuses on people as they engage in farming, marketing, marrying, raising children, healing wounds, participating in rituals, fighting on the battlefield and myriad other activities.”
These activities included textile production. The book states that it may have been the most “ubiquitous craft in Mesoamerica,” and that all women in the empire learned to spin and weave, “from Tenochtitlán to rural villages.”
In areas added to the empire by conquest, women had to make textiles for about 300,000 items of clothing delivered annually to their Aztec overlords, the most common type of tribute paid, according to Berdan. In the arduous process, a woman or girl spun cotton or maguey fibers on a spindle, then wove them into cloth on a loom strapped to her back.
A Nahua weaver in Cosoleacaque, Veracruz, using a traditional backstrap loom. Biblioteca de Investigación Juan de Córdova
Berdan said it was “eye-opening” to see weavers use these ancient techniques today.
“The 16th-century documents provide us with images of weavers and some descriptions of their activities,” she said, “but here were women expertly weaving cloth very much as it has been done for hundreds and hundreds of years … and I could talk with them!”
The indigenous women of the Sierra Norte told Berdan that they had mastered the process by age 14, which historical texts say was also the case in the ancient empire.
Berdan describes the Aztecs as “meticulous artisans” and cites this as among a number of clarifications she wishes to make about the ancient civilization in her new book.
After the establishment of Tenochtitlán in 1325, the city-state expanded over the decades until it became an empire that reigned for nearly a century. It grew through negotiation as well as conquest, Berdan notes, and the people within its borders would have called themselves Mexica, not Aztecs.
Beyond these points, the book describes the civilization’s scientific achievements as impressive, from astronomers who calculated a 365-day solar calendar to farmers who used innovative agricultural techniques such as terraces and chinampas — small artificial “islands” of soil built on a freshwater lake for agricultural purposes.
Berdan’s latest book looks at the lives of average Mexicas as they farmed, raised children, participated in rituals or fought in battle. Reaktion Books
Furthermore, she finds the Aztec religion more multidimensional than the usual narrative of human sacrifice we hear today. “Aztec religion was rich and complex,” she said. “The Aztecs worshipped many gods and goddesses (each with their own temples and cadres of priests), recited colorful myths and performed frequent ceremonies with processions, offerings, dances, music and song. Some — but not all — of these ceremonies included human sacrifices.”
The Aztecs sacrificed both humans and animals to the sun god Huitzilopochtli — for light and warmth for the all-important maize — and to the rain and water deities, Tláloc and Chalchiuhtlicue, for sufficient rainfall.
“Human sacrifices were always conducted in ritual contexts,” Berdan said, “although some of the large numbers of sacrifices we hear about relate to an added political dimension where a Mexica king wished to intimidate both his enemies and his allies.”
Even when it comes to the conquest, Berdan finds cause to challenge an existing narrative, in a chapter entitled “The End of the Fifth Age: The Setting Sun.”
Nahua perspectives of the conquest and its direct aftermath, she said, are “quite different than the usual narrative of the conquest.”
For instance, she explained, “the Spaniards’ native allies, such as the Tlaxcalans, did not view themselves as part of a Spanish enterprise but rather looked at the Spaniards as helping them to fight and conquer their longstanding Mexica enemies.”
The god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, was among other things, the patron god of arts and crafts. Codex Magliabechiano, facsimile edn, Zelia Nuttall, ed
Despite the fall of Tenochtitlán and the devastating epidemics that followed over the ensuing decades, Berdan questions to what extent the Aztecs were actually conquered, noting that about two million people speak Náhuatl in Mexico today.
In the Huasteca — a region located partially along the Gulf of Mexico and touching parts of seven states, the language is growing in vocabulary, adding new words for recent innovations. Email, for instance, is tepozmecaixtlatiltlahcuilloli, or “apparatus where writing is delivered to your face.”
Another fusion of past and present can be seen during Day of the Dead: ofrendas include not only the modern beverages of Coke and Pepsi but also the Aztec staples of atole and tamales.
“The Aztecs viewed life and death as a constant cyclical process,” Berdan said. “Day of Dead ceremonies are very important in Mexico today and reinforce ties between the living and the dead. It is another example of the fusion of indigenous and Spanish traditions.”
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Humphrey and Nieto wanted a quiet wedding but it didn't quite turn out that way.
One of the federal government’s leading anti-corruption crusaders might have thought he could have avoided the media spotlight by getting married in Guatemala rather than at home.
But he apparently didn’t count on one of his high-profile guests losing US $35,000 because he didn’t declare it upon arrival at the Guatemala City airport and another losing her job because she flew into the country on a private jet.
Santiago Nieto, head of the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), wed Carla Humphrey, a National Electoral Institute councilor, in Antigua, Guatemala, on Saturday.
According to a report by the newspaper Reforma, the reception that followed a civil ceremony on Saturday night was an exuberant and lavish affair, with more than 300 guests toasting the newlyweds with Moët & Chandon champagne and chowing down on gourmet dishes before hitting the dance floor to dance – and drink – the night away.
The news website Infobae reported that the bride and groom decided to get married in Guatemala out of fear that a wedding in Mexico could have been targeted by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. But there were more topical things on guests’ minds as they let their hair down in Guatemala’s premier tourist destination.
A hot topic of conversation at the reception, held at an exclusive five star hotel, was the detention for five hours on Friday of several guests who flew into La Aurora International Airport on a private jet.
Reforma reported that Paola Félix Díaz, the now-former Mexico City tourism minister, Juan Francisco Ealy, general director of the El Universal newspaper, and Alejandro Gou, a theater producer who produced the recent Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City, were among the guests detained after seven envelopes stuffed with US $35,000 in cash that hadn’t been declared were found by police in a suitcase.
The money, which apparently belonged to Ealy, was confiscated in accordance with anti-money laundering laws. Nieto and Humphrey’s wedding guests were eventually released so they could travel the approximately 40 kilometers to Antigua.
According to the newspaper El País, which obtained access to a Guatemalan police document, the owner of the suitcase in which the cash was held was Erika Telich, Ealy’s personal assistant. Telich told police that the money belonged to her boss and that he took it to Guatemala because he planned to use it to pay for medical expenses in Los Angeles, where he intended to travel on Monday after the wedding. Ealy apparently had appointments to consult with medical experts in California – seemingly suspicious specialists with a predilection for hard cold cash transported clandestinely across international borders.
Paola Félix, meanwhile, arguably suffered a bigger loss, tendering her resignation as she evidently felt her position was no longer tenable.
“I’m in Guatemala at a social event to which I was invited. I traveled on a private flight, it’s false that I have been arrested and it’s false that the flight was paid for by a [government] supplier. I haven’t committed any illegal activity but I’ve decided to tender my resignation to [Mexico City Mayor] Claudia Sheinbaum,” she wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
Former tourism minister Paola Félix.
In another Twitter post, she threatened to sue an El Financiero journalist if he didn’t retract his claim that she had been detained.
The Mexico City government subsequently released a statement to announce that it had accepted Félix’s resignation and to emphasize that it considers “the principles of republican austerity” to be fundamental.
At an event on Sunday, Sheinbaum described the former tourism minister as an efficient official but stressed that no members of her government are permitted to travel on private jets. Félix acted like a self-serving official of previous governments at a time when such conduct is no longer tolerated, the mayor said.
Wearing dark glasses, the ex-official returned to Mexico City on a commercial flight on Sunday, Reforma reported.
Among the other high-profile guests at the now infamous Guatemala wedding were Supreme Court Justice Yasmín Esquivel, Campeche Governor Layda Sansores, former Sinaloa governor Quirino Ordaz, former Querétaro governor Francisco Domínguez and former presidential candidate and National Action Party Senator Josefina Vázquez Mota.
Although Nieto is a prominent member of the federal government, no members of President López Obrador’s cabinet were in attendance.
Francisco Gárate, a former National Action Party representative at the National Electoral Institute, raised questions about how the UIF chief and his bride were able to pay for such a sumptuous wedding. He said they are “morally obliged” to disclose where the money for the wedding and travel to Guatemala came from, raising the possibility that government suppliers and/or contractors gave the couple “a little gift” to offset their expenses.
“Both are subject to the Public Servants Responsibilities Law,” Gárate said.
López Obrador on Monday described the events in Guatemala as a “scandalous affair” and advised public officials to act with “moderation and austerity.”
Nieto, who was fired in 2017 from his previous position as special prosecutor for electoral crimes for illegally disclosing details about a corruption investigation involving Brazilian company Odebrecht and former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya, has not commented publicly on the weekend’s events, although he did retweet a congratulatory message from a journalist.
Humphrey has also kept mum – the couple presumably has a honeymoon to enjoy, and Nieto might want to cool his heels for a few days, and clear his head, before defending himself against allegations he is more adept at making.
Car production in millions of units. financial times
Once a magnet for billions of dollars in investments and rapid job creation, Mexican monthly auto production and sales are languishing at their lowest levels in a decade as the industry is pummeled by the pandemic and semiconductor chip shortages.
The chip problems felt around the world are hitting North America particularly hard, and Mexico is experiencing an outsized impact since it relies on autos for more than 3% of its gross domestic product. Data published on Monday showed that auto production in Latin America’s second-largest economy in October was at its lowest for that month since 2011.
The auto supply chain issues could hit GDP by 1% this year, according to a Bank of México estimate from August, and the problems will probably last well into next year. The uncertainty ahead was compounded by changing U.S. consumer tastes, the transition to electric vehicles and the Mexican government’s energy policy, analysts said.
“We’re in a really tricky moment for the sector,” said Adrián de la Garza, chief economist for Mexico at Citi. “It’s not clear that going forward we’ll see a big rebound in foreign investment.”
That could be a drag on Mexico’s already fragile economic recovery, which contracted suddenly in the third quarter. While the sector has long benefited from North America free trade agreements, an eagerly awaited boom from factories moving from Asia to be closer to the U.S. is yet to materialize.
This year, automakers had hoped to recover fully from COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020. But supply chain bottlenecks caused by persistent waves of the virus, raw material shortages and other factors severely restricted the supply of chips. That has led to stoppages and production cuts across many factories.
“We recovered from the plant closures but then we basically ate up all the raw materials and ran out of components,” said Guido Vildozo, senior market analyst at IHS Markit. “We are at a point where . . . if anything is derailed, then the domino effect is very severe.”
Almost 1 million Mexicans work in the auto industry. Entire regions of the country depend on the factories owned by big names such as General Motors and Nissan and their suppliers. More than 80% of production is for export, mostly to the U.S.
Many emerging markets that made autos were seeing a hit of 0.1 to 0.2% of GDP from the chip problems, said analysts at Capital Economics. But in Mexico, the Czech Republic and Hungary, where the sector comprises a larger chunk of the economy, the overall impact was likely to be greater than 1% of GDP, including spillover effects, they added.
Tatiana Clouthier, Mexico’s economy minister, warned the chip problems were having an impact on the wider economy, and said her team had been working within the U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) to strengthen the supply chain for chip parts.
“We’re in the HLED working on this, from issues around training and reskilling of people needed for new chip models, to defining which parts each side will do,” she told the Financial Times. “It’s one of our priorities.”
Another reason why Mexico has been hit hard is that it still makes many smaller cars, which have been deprioritized in terms of which chips the companies order. There is also a clear trend among consumers in the U.S., Mexico’s main auto market, away from smaller passenger vehicles toward light trucks. Mexico is rebalancing but cannot go as fast as the changing trends.
“You essentially have a double whammy,” said Vildozo. “You’re constrained on semiconductor availability but then the industry also looks at what generates revenue.”
Local car sales have also plummeted, with the industry having suffered its worst October for sales in a decade, reflecting a lack of inventory. “It’s a complicated moment, without a doubt,” said Jorge Vallejo, president and chief executive of Mitsubishi Motors Mexico.
The short-term chip issues are hurting now, but several longer-term trends are also converging on the horizon.
A recent proposal to nationalize future lithium production and prioritize dirtier, more expensive state energy was unlikely to help Mexico’s case in the global fight for electric vehicle investment, said analysts.
Clouthier said that her team was working with the private sector and academia on the transition to electric vehicles, particularly around battery production.
“We’re doing what we have to do to move forward in a mixed system,” she said.
The shift has the potential to reshape the geography of auto manufacturing around the world, said José Zozaya Délano, executive president of the country’s auto industry body AMIA.
“Mexico . . . has shown over the years it has the capacity and qualified people to make vehicles with advanced technology,” he said. “We’re ready, but we need to do a better job in attracting investment and giving confidence in it.”
Tourists take shelter in a Puerto Morelos hotel after gunfire last Thursday.
Fearing that recent incidents of violence in Quintana Roo will have a negative impact on the tourism industry, business and tourism organizations have called on authorities to ramp up security in the Caribbean coast state.
In the wake of attacks in Puerto Morelos and Tulum that terrorized tourists and left two foreign women dead in the latter destination, three organizations warned that more needs to be done to improve security for residents and tourists.
Asserting that there is a “fierce and ruthless” turf war between competing drug gangs that operate in Quintana Roo – including on the state’s beaches, the Hotel Association of Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres urged municipal, state and federal authorities to carry out “firm and forceful actions” to combat insecurity in tourism destinations.
Association official Jesús Almaguer Salazar said the presence of federal security forces needs to be bolstered to deter violence.
“We appeal to the good will of the president. The navy has shown that it can control these kinds of situations,” he said. “… The presence of an elite navy corps in the state that supports [local] authorities would be significant.”
Abelardo Vara, a hotel owner and former president of the Cancún hotel association, claimed that the federal government’s so-called abrazos, no balazos (hugs, not bullets) security approach – which favors addressing the root causes of violence over combating it with force – has failed and criminal groups have been allowed to flourish.
“It’s out of hand. The hugs haven’t worked,” he said. “Being honest, they haven’t allocated sufficient resources to control insecurity,” Vara added. “… Every day you find [dead] people in bags, dismembered people.”
The Caribbean Business Coordinating Council (CCEC) also called for security to be bolstered in Quintana Roo. It warned that incidents such as the shooting on a Puerto Morelos beach last Thursday that left two presumed drug dealers dead and the attack in a Tulum restaurant/bar late last month that claimed the lives of a a German woman and an Indian woman could cause people to cancel their plans to travel to the Riviera Maya. It is an outcome that would undermine the region’s recovery from the sharp pandemic-induced downturn.
The CCEC urged all levels of government to work together with citizens’ groups on a joint strategy to combat the criminal groups that “do so much damage to our organization.”
The executive president of the Quintana Roo Vacation Clubs Association also said that coordination between municipal, state and federal authorities is needed to effectively tackle the crime problem but emphasized that the support of the army and navy is paramount.
Miriam Cortés Franco described security as the most sensitive issue for the tourism sector, adding that her organization has fielded numerous calls from people asking whether Quintana Roo is a safe place to visit.
She noted that a new military base – inaugurated by former president Enrique Peña Nieto in late 2018 – was built just north of Cancún, but lamented that it hasn’t been used since 2019 because the government redeployed troops to other parts of the country to stem the flow of migrants.
Cortés said that tourism destinations in Quintana Roo are very attractive to criminal groups, which are often involved in extortion in addition to drug trafficking and street-level dealing. For that reason, greater federal support is needed to combat crime, she said.
Quintana Roo was the 18th most violent state among the 32 federal entities in the first nine months of the year with 495 homicides, according to federal data.
According to the state Security Ministry, at least six criminal groups operate in the Riviera Maya, a coastal region that includes Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum. They include the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Old School Zetas.
