Mexico’s role in this system is often framed through an outdated oil lens.

Forty years ago, that framing made sense. In 1982, Mexico exported roughly $24 billion, and almost 65% of that was crude oil. Today, Mexico exports more than $620 billion, with oil representing just 3.5% of the total, while manufacturing accounts for nearly 90%. In other words, Mexico’s economy has transformed from being oil-dependent to manufacturing-driven — and manufacturing is, above all, energy-intensive.

This transformation has tied Mexico and the United States together through energy flows that are structural, not optional.

Natural gas: The backbone of integration

Looking only at imports, the integration is even clearer: virtually all of the natural gas Mexico imports — over 99% — arrives via pipeline from the United States, reflecting a high degree of physical and commercial interdependence between the two energy systems, particularly U.S. producers in Texas, for whom Mexico has become a critical and stable export outlet.

Natural gas now anchors Mexico’s electricity generation, industrial production, and export manufacturing — much of which directly supports U.S. supply chains.

Refined products & crude: A circulatory system

The result is clear: under many trade measures, the United States now runs an energy surplus with Mexico, meaning the value of U.S. energy exports to Mexico exceeds the value of Mexican energy exports to the U.S. This surplus supports U.S. GDP, sustains jobs in energy production and refining, and strengthens America’s position in global energy markets.

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Imports by Country of Origin, Exports by Destination, U.S. Natural Gas Imports by Country and U.S. Natural Gas Exports and Re-Exports by Country.

Mutual benefits embedded in infrastructure

As documented by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, this integration is neither temporary nor marginal. Pipeline shipments of U.S. natural gas to Mexico have increased by an order of magnitude since the early 2000s, and today the majority of U.S. pipeline exports flow south of the border rather than overseas.

U.S.-Mexico Border Crossing Natural Gas Pipelines and Expansions of Mexico’s Domestic Pipelines

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration and Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, Mexico. “U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico have grown in recent years as the domestic pipeline network within Mexico continues to expand.”

Why policy certainty matters

This is why energy policy cannot be an afterthought in debates about economic strategy or geopolitical competition. Mexico is not peripheral to U.S. energy security — it is central to it. American energy production, refining, and export capacity are increasingly linked to Mexican demand, infrastructure, and industrial growth. Likewise, Mexico’s ability to sustain its manufacturing base and capture nearshoring opportunities depends on continued access to U.S. energy and predictable investment conditions.

If the United States wants to remain an energy powerhouse, it cannot do so alone. It’s not just about drilling in Texas or New Mexico — it’s about smart partnerships, strong trade frameworks and working closely with reliable neighbors.

Seen this way, energy fits naturally with the other themes in this series. If AI is the brain of the future economy, energy is the bloodstream. And today, that bloodstream flows across North America.

Catch up on parts 1-5 of Could Mexico make America great again? here:

• Part 1: An introduction
• Part 2: A primer on China
• Part 3: Zeroing in on the demographics
• Part 4: About that trade deficit
• Part 5: How the AI race changes the game 

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank.

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Beneath the memes, prompts and productivity hacks lies a serious geopolitical race. And in that space, the U.S.-Mexico relationship may be one of the most important — and underappreciated — dynamics shaping trade and economic policy in the years ahead.

At its core, AI leadership isn’t just about algorithms. It’s about hardware, energy, data, talent, resilience and national security.

Models don’t train themselves in the cloud — they require massive computing power, physical servers, advanced chips, secure supply chains and uninterrupted infrastructure. In that sense, AI looks a lot more like manufacturing than software. And that’s where North America — and especially Mexico — enters the picture. The USMCA’s digital trade framework is becoming a national security tool, not just a trade one — governing data flows, infrastructure and trust in ways that directly shape AI competitiveness (Inter-American Dialogue).

As tensions with China persist and export controls on advanced chips tighten, the United States faces a simple challenge: how to scale AI infrastructure fast, securely and close to home. This is a race where the digital world is moving more quickly than the physical one. AI leadership ultimately rests on semiconductors, and today roughly three-quarters of global chip manufacturing capacity remains concentrated in East Asia, with advanced production highly exposed to geopolitical risk (US-Mexico Foundation). (No need to revisit what happened during COVID).

One concrete example: Mexico is now home to major investments in AI server and “superchip” assembly. Nvidia’s next-generation GB200 servers are being assembled in Jalisco through Foxconn, alongside a growing ecosystem of suppliers relocating from Asia. These facilities aren’t designed for the Mexican market — they’re built to serve North American strategic needs. This is nearshoring not as a buzzword, but as an AI supply-chain strategy. To understand why infrastructure location matters so much, it helps to look at where the physical backbone of the digital economy actually lives.

AI doesn’t live in the cloud — it lives in data centers. And those data centers are highly concentrated geographically, making location, energy and connectivity strategic assets.

Hardware, however, is only half the story. AI also runs on data centers — lots of them. Mexico is rapidly becoming an extension of the North American digital backbone. Multibillion-dollar investments from Microsoft, AWS and others are turning cities like Querétaro into critical nodes for cloud and AI workloads. Enabled by USMCA digital trade rules, these data centers operate within compatible regulatory and privacy frameworks, allowing U.S. firms to expand capacity, improve latency and build redundancy without leaving the region.

This distributed infrastructure matters for resilience. AI systems can’t afford downtime.

In scenarios ranging from cyberattacks to natural disasters or energy stress, having computing capacity spread across the continent strengthens continuity. Mexico and Canada aren’t alternatives to the United States — they are fail-safes. And Mexico’s comparative advantage in this ecosystem isn’t about replicating advanced chip fabs, but about strengthening the assembly, testing, packaging and integration layers that make AI hardware scalable and resilient across North America (U.S.-Mexico Foundation). This isn’t happening by accident. Mexico’s next phase of industrial and digital policy is explicitly aligned with this opportunity.

CFE opens 269-MW combined cycle power plant in Querétaro to boost Bajío grid

Mexico’s industrial and digital infrastructure plans — including data centers, energy, and advanced manufacturing — are increasingly aligned with North America’s AI and nearshoring strategy.

Then there’s talent. AI leadership ultimately depends on people, not just machines. Mexico produces thousands of engineers and computer science graduates every year, many already embedded in North American firms and research ecosystems. Mexican universities graduate over 130,000 engineers annually across degree levels, along with nearly 3,000 master’s graduates in computer science or related fields — the highest number in Latin America. Talent mobility under the USMCA, combined with shared standards and regulatory coordination, accelerates innovation while keeping critical capabilities inside the region.

Seen through this lens, AI becomes a familiar story. Just like manufacturing, trade and energy, the United States doesn’t need to “do it all alone.” It needs a trusted, integrated regional system that lowers risk, increases scale and preserves strategic autonomy. Mexico is not a competitor in the AI race — it is an enabler.

(Just as a footnote, AI related to physical security enforcement, arms and potential war is a huuuge topic, of which I’m not capable of writing about, but keep that in mind as well.)

AI dominance won’t be decided by who writes the best prompt. It will be decided by who controls the full stack: chips, servers, energy, data, talent and trust. The upcoming 2026 USMCA review isn’t just a procedural milestone — it’s a narrow strategic window to lock in North America’s AI advantage before other models define the rules instead (Inter-American Dialogue).

In AI, just like in trade, the future isn’t about decoupling from your closest partners.
It’s about building with them.

Catch up on parts 1-4 of Could Mexico make America great again? here:

• Part 1: An introduction
• Part 2: A primer on China
• Part 3: Zeroing in on the demographics
• Part 4: About that trade deficit

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank.

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It’s a wide and complex discussion — covering deficits, tariffs, international institutions, subsidies, dumping and plenty of other trade-related issues. For this piece, I want to focus on trade deficits because they are the real driving force behind Trump’s commercial instincts. Of all the texts in this series, this one probably brings out my inner David Ricardo the most. I’ll try to keep it digestible.

Over the past decade — especially the last eight years — the U.S.-Mexico trade relationship has intensified like never before. As most of you already know, Mexico and the United States are now each other’s top trading partners, both in exports and imports. Mexico is the largest buyer and seller for the U.S., and vice versa. But given the difference in economic size — roughly 16 to 1 (U.S.: ~$30 trillion vs. Mexico: ~$1.86 trillion) — and Mexico’s export-oriented model, Mexico naturally exports more than it imports. That dynamic has deepened Mexico’s trade surplus with the United States.

When Trump first took office, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico stood at around US $63 billion. By the end of 2024, it had grown roughly 2.7x, reaching $171 billion. Well, well, well — that sounds like terrible news for Mexico with Trump back in office. And yes, it could be bad news. But only if we keep measuring trade deficits the wrong way.

(Picture me rolling up my sleeves — here comes the fun part.)

Why isn’t it enough to measure trade balances simply by adding and subtracting goods crossing borders?

Imagine you have a “trade relationship” with two entities. One is a car mechanic down the street; the other is a convenience store on the other side of town. Sadly for you, you run a $100 deficit with each. But here’s the twist: you’re also a car mechanic. Last week, you sold $900 worth of parts and oil to the nearby mechanic, and she sold you $1,000 worth of inputs you needed to keep your business running. That’s a $100 deficit. Meanwhile, you buy $100 worth of goods from the faraway convenience store — and sell them nothing. Same deficit. Completely different relationship. Right?

Now, let’s rename the characters. You are the United States. Closest-car-mechanic is Mexico. Faraway-convenience-store is China.

One way to assess trade relationships more intelligently is to look at trade deficits relative to exports. By 2024, the U.S.-China relationship showed a deep structural imbalance, with a deficit equivalent to -205.8% of U.S. exports to China. With Mexico, the figure is far more balanced, around -51.4% over time. In plain English: the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico rises and falls roughly in line with U.S. exports to Mexico. With China, the U.S. mainly imports finished goods and sells comparatively little in return.

There’s another way to look at this. We can adjust the traditional trade balance by subtracting the exports to the U.S. that are produced by U.S. companies operating in Mexico.

In 2023, Mexico exported about $560 billion to the United States. Roughly $220 billion came from manufacturing and export services. Of that amount, 80% originated from U.S.-owned firms, about $176 billion. That same year, the U.S. recorded a $152 billion trade deficit with Mexico. By this logic, you could argue that the “real” balance wasn’t negative at all. Interesting, right? That said, this approach is still imperfect, since those exports also contain non-U.S. components.

Which brings us to the last mile of the text: components and value added.

To truly understand trade relationships, we must measure them in terms of value-added content. Back to Closest-car-mechanic. If she sells me an engine for $100, that’s the headline number. But what if 75% of that engine’s components were initially produced by me and sold to her? Suddenly, the deficit looks very different — because we’re co-producing the engine.

This is precisely what happens between the United States and Mexico. Mexico has the highest share of U.S. components embedded in its exports — roughly 10 times more American content than Chinese exports and nearly three times the global average. And it works the other way too: among all foreign value added in U.S. exports, Mexico ranks first, accounting for about 13%.

And, keeping the car analogy, the auto industry works exactly like that: the U.S.-Mexico automotive trade deficit appears large in gross terms ($108 billion), yet, when measured in value-added terms, it reduces by 82% ($19.8 billion)!

I promised short essays, and I’ll keep my word. So let’s end with some cool and sexy takeaways. Not all trade deficits are created equal — and we shouldn’t treat them as if they were.

The U.S.-Mexico economic relationship has evolved from a traditional buyer–seller dynamic into a deeply integrated co-production system.

That system is like a scrambled egg. You can’t separate the yolk from the whites and put them back in the shell. The only sensible thing to do is keep scrambling — maybe add some bacon, cheese and more eggs — and make it even better. Cheers!

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank.

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Before getting into politics and economics, it’s worth grounding the conversation in a simple demographic fact. Today, more than 20% of the U.S. population is Hispanic, and over 70% of that group is of Mexican origin. This isn’t an abstract statistic — it’s a structural feature of American society, visible across large parts of the country and primarily concentrated in the Southwest.

With that context in mind, the United States is home to the largest Mexican diaspora in the world, but what we often forget is that Mexico is also home to more Americans than any other country outside the U.S. That alone has important political implications. Three U.S. states — New Mexico, California and Texas — are already majority Latino.

Let me repeat that: the majority of voters in those states, more than any other group (including white Americans), are Latino.

And not coincidentally, Texas and California are the two states with the greatest weight in the Electoral College. Several others are following the same path. In the coming years, states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida — among others — are likely to reach a similar tipping point.

Beyond citizenship and identity, there’s also the labor market reality.

Mexico is the number one country in terms of work visas issued by the United States, followed by China. This matters because the U.S. labor market is structurally constrained. A quick look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics — specifically the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings — tells a very clear story: for the past seven years (excluding a brief moment during the pandemic), the U.S. has consistently had more job openings than unemployed people. This isn’t rocket science. If the United States wants to grow, reindustrialize and compete, it needs people.

Here’s where demographics become impossible to ignore. China, the United States and Mexico are entering very different phases — and that divergence matters. China has already passed its population peak and is experiencing a sharp decline in birth rates, which will steadily shrink its working-age population. The United States is aging too: Baby Boomers and Gen Xers are retiring faster than younger generations are entering the labor force, resulting in a net reduction of roughly 450,000 workers per year (take a moment to let that sink in).

Mexico, by contrast, is at a demographic moment similar to China’s about thirty years ago, with a still-growing and relatively young working-age population. This makes Mexico’s labor force a natural complement to the U.S. economy — not as a substitute, but as a strategic extension of North America’s productive capacity. Quick clarification: I’m not necessarily arguing for increased migration flows. Having everybody working within their territory, but with a sense of collaboration and complementarity, works.

With a population that is, on average, eight years younger than that of the United States, and a workforce that has spent the past three decades training in high-end manufacturing, Mexico has a clear opportunity to enable — not replace, not outsource — the reindustrialization of the region. Add to that the deep social, cultural and political ties between our two countries, and the conclusion becomes hard to ignore.

If we choose to see each other as partners in growth, the path forward is clear.

We need bridges, not walls.

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank. 

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Now, I know you’re all eager to get to the answer promised in the title — but we’re not there yet. Before that, we need to understand the magnitude of the opportunity, and we can’t do that without talking about the main driver behind these policies: China.

Over the past 20-plus years, three major shifts reshaped the global economic and trade system.

First, manufacturing capacity. Two decades ago, the U.S. share of global manufacturing output was nearly triple China’s. Today, China’s manufacturing output is roughly double that of the United States.

Second, export market share. Before joining the World Trade Organization, China accounted for a modest 3% of global exports, while North America held around 20%. Today, China stands at roughly 12%, and North America at about 14%.

Third, global trade dominance. Twenty years ago, around 80% of countries traded more with the U.S. than with China. Today, nearly 70% trade more with China.

The most common — and mistaken — conclusion drawn from this data is that China simply became the “factory of the world.” But when you look at the destination of Chinese exports, the picture changes. The United States is China’s largest trading partner by far — more than three times larger than its next partner, Japan (excluding Hong Kong).

That alone should be a wake-up call. The real question isn’t whether the U.S. can outcompete China on its own — it’s how North America competes together.

So yes, these are a lot of numbers. But what do they actually mean?

In short, over just two decades, China achieved the largest and fastest expansion in production, economic growth and global market share gain of any country in human history. When China entered the WTO, North American integration and production were on a strong upward trajectory — some might even have predicted exponential growth. Then China entered the picture, and North America plateaued. The U.S. outsourced jobs, technology and innovation to China and other Asian economies. The North American engine — the United States — turned its focus elsewhere. Things didn’t go that badly for North America, but we’ve never seriously explored the counterfactual: how different things could have been.

Let’s go back to the numbers to put the opportunity in perspective. Over the past seven years, China’s share of U.S. imports has declined by 8 percentage points. The biggest winner so far? Mexico — which captured two of those eight points in just the last three years.

That shift fueled a years-long conversation among businesspeople and analysts that usually started with some speaker saying something like: “Nearshoring, friendshoring, ally-shoring — pick your favorite, but this is a historic opportunity.”

And all that excitement was about those two points. It truly changed everyone’s expectations of Mexico.

What makes this even more striking is that during those same years, Mexico hasn’t had a strong pro-investment economic policy — in fact, arguably the opposite. Economic growth has been weak; and I’m being generous with that statement. And yet, foreign direct investment keeps hitting record highs, industrial parks are running at full capacity, and exports to the U.S. keep rising. Mexico is now the United States’ top trading partner, both in exports and imports.

Let me leave you with one final data point to underline the scale of what’s at stake. China has roughly 2 billion square meters of industrial parks. Mexico has about 100 million. If Mexico were to capture just 5% of China’s industrial real estate footprint, it would double its total industrial capacity overnight (yes, I know the geographic differences — just bear with me).

I promised short essays, and this one has already pushed the limit. It’s impossible to compress all of this into a few paragraphs, but the message is clear. North America once had the chance to become the world’s leading technological, manufacturing and innovation powerhouse. That opportunity slipped through our fingers around the year 2000.

The good news? It’s not gone forever. But getting it back requires coordination, trust and serious work across multiple fronts. I’ll share my thoughts on how — and where — in the next pieces.

Stay tuned.

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank. 

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What we do have are some guardrails and foundations in U.S. policy that won’t change anytime soon. And those at least help us predict, in one way or another, the direction of economic and trade policy — and, more importantly, Mexico’s role in enabling the United States’ economic growth.

From where I stand, there are four big theoretical pillars shaping U.S. policy going forward.

First, the obvious one: the need to move away from China.

Twenty years ago, the U.S. share of global manufacturing value added was nearly triple China’s (26% vs. 9%). Fast forward to today, and China’s share is double that of the U.S. (31% vs. 15%). The global trading map flipped too: two decades ago, nearly 80% of the world traded more with the U.S. than with China. Today, 70% of the world trades more with China than with the U.S.! I won’t dig too deep into why this sets off every economic, political, and security alarm in Washington — I’ll let your imagination do the work.

Second, the re-industrialization of the American economy. This is a deep conversation about shifting the engine of growth from demand to supply — in other words, seeing Americans first as producers, not just consumers. For roughly four decades (think Reagan onward), success was measured by how much the average American could buy. That model required a trade-plus-geopolitics cocktail that pushed manufacturing to the cheapest locations possible while opening trade relationships around the globe. A.K.A. globalization.

The opportunity cost? Outsourced jobs, abandoned towns, and communities left behind — fertile ground for what economists politely call “deaths of despair.” Drugs of every kind filled the gap that good jobs used to occupy. And while buying a cheap T-shirt or a new refrigerator is nice, good jobs restore dignity, family stability and social fabric. Migration policy is part of this story too — but I’ll save that for another day.

Third, a shift toward fair trade rather than free trade.

Beyond the slogan, it means managed, controlled trade instead of an open-door model. The argument is straightforward: under the WTO framework, the U.S. has some of the lowest applied tariffs in the world — lower than Europe, Mexico, Canada, China, Brazil, you name it. Add to that the fact that the U.S. dollar can’t “adjust” trade deficits the way other currencies can, because it’s the world’s safe asset. In other words, classic trade theory simply doesn’t fit the United States. And when you throw in other countries’ industrial and tax policies — like VAT refunds for temporary imports — the feeling in Washington is that the playing field isn’t exactly level. Like it or not, the U.S. isn’t walking away from managed trade anytime soon.

Fourth and finally: national security. I won’t pretend to be a security expert (I know my limits), but everything above directly affects America’s ability to defend itself — from shipbuilding capacity, to critical minerals, to military readiness, to geopolitical leverage. It’s all connected.

So the next question becomes: What does the United States need to actually pull off these new policies — without collapsing under their weight?

The good news is that many of the answers lie with its closest allies and neighbors. Spoiler alert: Mexico plays a starring role.

I know most of us don’t have the time or attention span for long essays, so I’ll dive into Mexico’s opportunity in a separate text. For now, thanks for making it this far — see you soon.

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he has been the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE). He has also served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank. 

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To provide context for the conversation, I want to make two points very clear.

The first is that AmCham Mexico has been the chamber representing the binational trade relationship between Mexico and the United States since 1917. Today, we bring together more than 1,400 companies from the U.S., Mexico and around the globe; large, medium, and small; and operating in every state of the country. Together, we generate one-quarter of Mexico’s GDP and more than 10 million formal jobs.

Secondly, our Chamber has thoroughly followed and analyzed the reform process, from the president’s initial proposal to today. We have shared recommendations with the current government, the transitional government and representatives of Congress.

Our activity in Mexico for more than a century has taught us that the key to overcoming any challenge lies in dialogue, deep analysis, and finding common ground amidst differences, not in incendiary statements. This has never been and will never be AmCham’s approach. Thus, we are concerned that the discussion about the reform has been reduced to the popular election of judges, ministers, and magistrates; however, this is not the only factor that could divert Mexico from a path of growth and prosperity.

The first problem with the proposal lies in the independence of the judges elected under the conditions of the new judicial discipline tribunal. This body could sanction judges based on vague and imprecise criteria, such as “acts or omissions contrary to the law,” “administration of justice,” or subjective metrics like “excellence.” This ambiguity of criteria can lead to arbitrary sanctions and compromised justice.

A second issue is the re-election of judges. We should aim for those elected to serve for a reasonable and continuous period. Only then can we avoid the temptation for elected judges to seek popular approval rather than fulfill their primary duty, which is to administer justice.

Another relevant issue is the eligibility requirements. The criterion established in the president’s initial project, regarding the accreditation of professional experience, is essential. Our proposal includes the implementation of a knowledge and professional practice exam, developed and implemented publicly, openly, and transparently, under the supervision of law schools, faculties, and professional bar associations.

An additional concern is the implementation and its effect on the functioning of the justice system. Conservative estimates suggest that this reform would result in the election of more than 10,000 candidates among magistrates and judges from the 32 circuits nationwide. Thus, a resident of Mexico City would have to choose over 600 officials among more than 4,000 candidates, using 175 ballots — a task seemingly designed to test patience, logistics, and the very purpose of voting.

Abruptly changing 50% of the Judiciary in 2025 and the other 50% in 2027 would create significant challenges. In any scenario, we recommend a gradual implementation that allows for an orderly and viable transition without affecting ongoing cases. This could include extraordinary elections in 2025 to fill vacancies, with subsequent partial elections in 2030, 2033, 2036, and 2039.

If, at a minimum, the points previously mentioned are not modified, the social and economic impacts will be inevitable and devastating. I highlight three ways these effects could materialize in our economy.

The first and most significant impact will be on the country’s credit rating. Losing investment-grade status — a warning already raised by several institutions — would be like playing with fire: the consequences would be serious and could shake the country’s economic stability, affecting debt costs, interest rates, exchange rates, country risk, and ultimately, inflation.

The second impact is the implementation of the USMCA. The potential dysfunction of independent and specialized courts in labor matters, as well as insufficient protection of investments through alternative justice mechanisms, increases the risk of renegotiating the treaty in 2026.

Finally, the third blow will be felt in investment. With a fragile judicial structure, a downgraded credit rating, and a poorly implemented USMCA, it is to be expected that the appetite for investing in the country will diminish, ending the opportunity to take advantage of nearshoring.

The message is clear. The reform we need is one that is debated, discussed, and ideally agreed upon, combining the best of all worlds: democracy, with certainty and growth. Why take rushed steps when we all agree that we can, together, improve the national justice system?

An accessible and democratic judicial system is also achievable without undermining the rule of law and checks and balances. We are at a historic and opportune juncture to start a new government where dialogue is the cornerstone upon which we build a more democratic and just country.

Pedro Casas Alatriste is the executive vice president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico.

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As the head of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico, a significant part of my role is to listen and understand the needs and opportunities that CEOs of American companies with investments in Mexico foresee in the Mexican economy. In an effort to summarize months of listening and analyzing, these are the four key industries and investment enablers that could maximize North America’s potential as the world’s economic powerhouse.

The four industries that could maximize the North American economy

Regarding key industries, North America must seize the opportunity to strengthen its production of medical devices and health-related goods and services, semiconductors, agroindustry and, obviously, electromobility.

This stems from global shifts in power, geopolitical realignments, national and regional security threats, as well as consumer-based needs in the 21st century.

Without delving into great detail, the pandemic underscored the need for less dependence on distant countries for health-related supplies. U.S.-China tensions and the high concentration of semiconductor production in Taiwan raised awareness about the risks of relying on one tiny island with high political uncertainty for over 60% of today’s semiconductors. Climate change and the Russia-Ukraine war further emphasized the importance of regional food self-sufficiency (as well as energy). Lastly, North America has been an automotive industrial hub for decades, and now it’s time for a significant shift in the transportation and mobility industries: electromobility. North America will and must remain the world’s top producer of these goods.

This all seems evident, with markets and governments working to foster integration into a more secure and reliable regional economy, as evidenced by the record levels of FDI in Mexico last year. Nevertheless, there are bumps in the road ahead.

At AmCham, we’ve identified several investment enablers that, if handled correctly and opportunistically, could propel the North American Era exponentially. If not, many opportunities could slip through our hands.

Top investment enablers for North American growth

For us, the most crucial investment enablers for the North American economy are: i) energy (infrastructure, capacity and the transition towards clean energy); ii) water (industrial use, conscious use and supply); iii) security and rule of law; iv) infrastructure (border infrastructure, telecommunications, fiber optics, cyber, railways, highways and ports); and last but not least, v) human capital (workforce development, upskilling and reskilling). Overall, we believe these enablers build a solid foundation for a sustainable economic ecosystem.

To achieve this, the worst thing we could do is expect others to do it for us.

It is not solely the responsibility of the United States government, the Mexican government, the private sector, civil society, FDI or any single entity. Now more than ever, we, as North Americans, need to tackle this together as allies, friends and partners. 

We must establish a coordinated regional industrial policy between governments and the private sector. We must ensure that society actively participates to strengthen our democracies and institutions. And we need to have a shared vision for the future.

By 2026, all eyes will be on us as a region. The North American FIFA World Cup will be the most-watched sports event in history (with more than a billion viewers worldwide). The USMCA revision will also occur that year. We have to ensure that 2026 is the year when North America portrays itself as a united, trusted and coordinated region — not the other way around.

Pedro Casas Alatriste is currently the Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico (AmCham). Previously, he served as the Director of Research and Public Policy at the US-Mexico Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he promoted issues such as Ally-Shoring, immigration in Mexico, integration of the binational workforce and regional competitiveness, among others. Before this role, he was the Coordinator of International Affairs at the Business Coordinating Council (CCE).

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