Archive

Field Note: Economic Sectors of Mexico - The Caribbean is drowning in record seaweed and the tourists keep coming anyway.

Sargassum pressure hit record levels this summer. Tourism has not collapsed, but the first cracks are now visible in the 2026 airport data. What the numbers say, and how a traveler can still plan around the mess.

Field Note: Europe just gave Mexico a horizon Washington took away three weeks ago.

Issue 13: Germany was Mexico's third biggest foreign investor. It fell out of the top five.

60 percent of German companies plan further job cuts in Germany through 2030, per a Handelsblatt survey. German investment in Mexico dropped at least 40 percent in Mexico's record year. Three of Mexico's trade agreements moved in two weeks. BMW confirms San Luis Potosí for its next electric generation. Safran opens a US$140 million engine maintenance hub in Querétaro. Chinese brands now sell more cars in Mexico than Volkswagen.

Field Note: Is Mexico more digitalised than Germany?

Not overall. But yes on the two things you operate through: how money moves and how the state is dealt with.

Issue 12: Are You Ready for the Change of Tides in the Trade Balance?

Computing passes cars as Mexico's top export. Mexico's imports from Taiwan surge 283 percent, pushing Taiwan far past Germany as a supplier. New German job vacancies at a 25-year low while auto suppliers bleed fastest. The VW Group reportedly weighing German plant closures the same week Audi workers in Puebla win a raise. Aguascalientes foreign investment and where Germany ranks. Döhler's expansion into Estado de México. The EU-Mexico vote clears committee in Brussels. And what US negotiators want from auto content.

Field Note: Around 120,000 German jobs gone in a year. We were told the work moved abroad. Abroad doesn't show it either.

German manufacturing job losses, the offshoring story used to explain them, and the destinations that can't account for the missing workers.

Issue 11: The quiet European move on Mexico

Europe signed a trade deal with Mexico and within weeks three players moved. France, Switzerland and Airbus each positioned differently while Germany, the largest EU trading partner, stayed quiet. The ratification clock now decides who gains the advantage.

Field Note: Wage Paradox Part 4: The entire business case for nearshoring

Mexicans are the affordable ones, not the Germans. So are German workers more productive, or just more expensive to employ?

Issue 10: Mexico built a surveillance state for the World Cup. Europe sells the cameras it won't allow at home.

Plan Kukulcán. Heard of it? More than 100,000 personnel, facial recognition and European firms selling Mexico technology their own union would heavily restrict and in key cases ban, if pointed at a crowd back home.

Field Note: ⚽World Cup edition - Mexico is hosting the World Cup. Most Mexicans will watch it from outside.

Twenty days after signing the Modernised Global Agreement (MGA) , Mexico opens a tournament where a stadium beer costs a day of minimum wage, a visitor spends a local monthly salary per day, and FIFA keeps the core revenue. For six weeks, the cameras become due diligence Mexico does not control.

Issue 9: One Country, Five Doors. Here Is Where the Next Investments Land

Germany sent its foreign minister. Spain sent capital. Belgium took the port. Five European countries moved on Mexico in one fortnight. Each reached for a different layer. The next FDI wave looks more chemical than automotive. Plus: the Spanish investment stock, the Veracruz expansion and why Washington's pressure is doing Europe a favour.

Field Note: Mexico's Wage Paradox, Part 3 - The Benefits Germany Stopped Paying For

Why a German and a Mexican compensation package are built on opposite logic: where each puts health insurance, pension, vacation and profit sharing, and why comparing the two salaries tells you almost nothing.