Do they want to continue outselling China to their northern neighbors? Go look for diplomats for the factory. Maybe here is the job for all the individuals who will lose an election.
Until now, the strongest concerns of those who manage the factories in Mexico are that they do not ‘steal’ the personnel that I am training, or that they do not get information from ‘my client’. Maybe some of you are honestly worried about that abstract but big issue of “cybersecurity.”
But the risk of mess with a country.
How’s that? It happens that for a couple of years, the directors of global companies seem to add to the problem of “intellectual property”a perhaps greater challenge: that of “National security” which already touches on matters of state.
It is not just about taking care of a truck on Mexican roads, which already represents a complexity. Now they must be more vigilant about sending files or emails, which can reveal, say, how some people from Guadalajara designed the chips from the American Intel.
There would be no problem if we were still living in the US-China honeymoon era. But today these nations are confronted precisely because they consider car, airplane and technology factories in general a matter of national security that can give their counterparts an advantage.
You no longer remember your love, perhaps, but in 2001, the Chinese accepted the rules of North Americans and Europeans and entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), which made their products cheaper in the world.
But that changed when Donald Trump became president of the United States and imposed new obstacles that importers from his country face by paying higher tariffs to buy things from the Asian nation.
The consequence? You already saw it last week when The New York Times published Mexico’s rise over China in the country’s northern neighbor: “The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly last year, and the country’s goods imports fell 20 percent to $427.2 billion.” .
In this context, Mexican exports to neighbors were slightly higher than in 2022, and reached 475.6 billion dollars. With that, the products made in the country of mezcal had enough to surpass their Asian competition there.
As many know, this geopolitical problem between China and the United States was not resolved during the Joe Biden administration, that maintained tariffs as a barrier to products from that nation. Now Trump threatens to increase obstacles to the Chinese, if he becomes president.
Investor and New York University professor Scott Galloway warned this week in his podcast that that revolt unexpectedly gives many advantages to Mexico (which are visible in the cheap dollar and in the many factories that are coming to Ciudad Juárez or Monterrey). And it doesn’t seem like anything is going to change the trend.
But owners and managers of Mexican factories will continue to receive these benefits as long as they can add the word “friendshoring” to that of “nearshoring” that already receives so much fame.
In addition to being close, it is advisable to be “close”, if the party is to continue.
This involves knowing, understanding and defending the sensitive information of what is manufactured or designed here, such as Ford’s electric vehicles or certain Intel semiconductors.
The issue of increasing regionalization is at the highest level in the office of individuals like Bernard Charlès, president of Dassault Systèmes, one of the 20 largest companies in France, whose systems operate in Mexican factories. They are used to produce most of the world’s vehicles and aircraft parts. In the country the company sponsors a training system through the networks of the enormous TecNMNational Technological Institute of Mexico.
Understanding geopolitics and ensuring that the company does not screw up because of a distracted employee can be the task of national diplomats. In case anyone is looking for a job in the summer…
