2024-10-15 22:24:00
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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she hopes there will be few changes to North America’s free trade deal under the next US president, as she announced $20bn in investments at an event with American and Mexican business leaders.
Sheinbaum said the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, known as the USMCA, had allowed the region to compete against the rest of the world, as she tried to lure wary US business leaders to invest more south of the border.
“Our idea is to keep the deal with few changes,” she told a press conference in Mexico City on Tuesday. “Our narrative is . . . we complement each other, we don’t compete.”
The USMCA, which underpins the region’s economy, will have its first review in 2026, and US presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he would open a full renegotiation and has threatened manufacturers who invest in Mexico with tariffs.
The former US president said on Tuesday that “if I’m going to be president of this country, I’m going to put a 100, 200, 2,000 per cent tariff [on cars from Mexico]”, potentially threatening investments from US companies such as John Deere, which is expanding production in northern Mexico.
Trump and other US politicians have also raised concerns over growing Chinese investment in Mexico, particularly in the car industry.
The uncertainty comes as Sheinbaum implements a controversial domestic agenda first set out by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It includes firing all the nation’s judges, prioritising state energy groups and eliminating some independent regulators.
The plans and her leftwing coalition’s supermajority in congress have given investors further pause as they await the implementation of the new laws and the result of the US vote in November.
“International investors are in wait-and-see mode,” said Nicholas Watson, Latin America managing director at consultancy Teneo. “The uncertainty could last weeks, depending on the outcome of the US election.”
Outside the Palacio Nacional, where the investment summit was held, striking judiciary workers blocked the entrances over Sheinbaum’s plan to hold elections for judges. They held up signs in English saying “businessman . . . your investment is in danger, do not be fooled” and “judicial reform, the short path to dictatorship”.
Legal experts have said the changes undermine judicial independence. Attendees of the meeting with business leaders said the government spent a lot of time trying to explain the reform and Sheinbaum said that the economy ministry would set up working groups on the topic.
“None of these reforms are a problem for investment in Mexico,” she told reporters.
Tuesday’s meetings were part of an annual “CEO dialogue” between Mexico and the US, with mostly regional executives participating from companies such as Walmart, UPS and Union Pacific.
Sheinbaum said she laid out her plans for public and private investments, and her presence — along with several senior cabinet members — was a good sign the relationship was a priority, and a shift from López Obrador, according to people at the meetings.
“The tone, the plan, the openness towards us is drastically different in a good way,” one business leader said. “The private sector is obviously sceptical due to everything that has happened lately — and in the past six years . . . [it’s] still too early to tell.”
Sheinbaum, who took office this month, has set ambitious renewables targets and said she would slash a bulging deficit. She also wants to review the country’s water concessions.
But many of her proposals, such as a national energy plan, are yet to be fleshed out.
“The government was quite professional,” another attendee said. “The worries are still there though.”
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