USMCA: Key for Mexico’s Recovery

As part of the efforts the private sector is making to boost an economic recovery, CCE called for a National Conference for Economic Recovery where former members of the public administration, business owners and specialists came to the conclusion that Mexico needs to define an economic reactivation plan and to define guidelines for the return to activities of the different sectors that make up the economy. Participants of the conference agreed on the importance of designing plans that would allow for a gradual reactivation that would ensure the survival of SMEs and that would preserve the export spaces that Mexico has in the US.

Ildefonso Guajardo, former Minister of Economy and main negotiator of the USMCA, recommended to define a strategy that could draw a map to reactivate different economic activities depending on the sector. According to Guajardo, reactivating the productive chains from the automotive industry is far easier than reactivating touristic activity.

Moreover, Guajardo mentioned that USMCA’s enforcement next July opens up the opportunity to better position Mexico in North American productive chains. However, he said that for Mexico to be able to position and take over some open spaces left by Chinese exports, Mexico’s productive chains needs to be fully functioning. “USMCA’s enforcement comes in a moment where value chains are clearly broken and about to transform forever. There is a reinvestment position and an exit from China,” said Guajardo, highlighting that these open spaces can easily be filled by Mexico. “It is fundamental to have a mechanism of dialogue in North America to align the openness with strategic sectors and be in synchrony.”

Guajardo later published on Facebook a series of actions that could be undertaken to try to boost the economic performance of the country. These actions include initiating an economic preparation phase that increases the number of tests that are done and includes the use of smart platforms to track new cases. Guajardo also advised developing sanitary protocols to reactivate jobs in offices in a safe way for everyone, training employees on security and sanitary protocols, using technology tools to open businesses in an ordered manner and focusing on priority sectors, using state and international organizations’ programs to generate liquidity and the necessary funding so the economy does not stop, creating a shared platform of government beneficiaries to not duplicate efforts and making sure all SMEs obtain the needed support and taking advantage of USMCA’s enforcement to increase the dialogue and connection between the economies of the tree North America countries.