Mexico City. The Modernized Global Agreement provides Mexico with a new opportunity to diversify its trade, as the country can no longer depend on the United States, said Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, head of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat).
Participating in the 6th Mexico-European Union Forum, the official emphasized that over the past 25 years, the economic relationship between the European bloc and Mexico has grown, with Europe becoming the second-largest investor in Mexico after the United States, and 6 million jobs have been created.
After noting that both sides share political, human, and cultural ties, as well as common goals such as democracy, prosperity, social justice, sustainable development, and multilateralism, she emphasized that with the signing of the Global Agreement next February, the outlook will be more dynamic.
"The Modernized Global Agreement gives us a new opportunity. It’s also very important for Mexico because what Mexico needs is to diversify its trade.
We can’t continue to depend solely on the United States, and it’s true that our trade primarily goes to the United States. It hasn’t diminished despite all this tariff noise. We remain a fairly powerful exporter to the United States, but there’s no doubt that our task now must be to diversify into other regions," she explained.
The official also called on representatives of the European bloc to promote investment flows to Mexico, as the country has a Plan Mexico, a roadmap for the coming years.
“Plan Mexico has very clear goals: to increase public and private investment to reach 25 percent of GDP,” she said.
Bárcena commented that while Mexico is seeking to replace imports, this does not mean it will reduce trade with Europe, as this is more focused on Asian countries.
In a later interview, Bárcena commented that the increase in tariffs on electric cars imported from countries with which Mexico does not have a trade agreement will not determine what happens in the sector.
“Electromobility won’t depend solely on China. Mexico has a very serious commitment,” she said before noting that President Claudia Sheinbaum is promoting a Mexican electric car. Furthermore, the Ministry is working on Standard 163, which will mandate that automakers move toward hybrid vehicles by 2027.
She emphasized that the environmental sector should not be seen as a restriction on development. “It’s not an obstacle; it’s meant for us to achieve better development, to do things better, to avoid making mistakes, and therefore to have a new economic sector, for example, like the circular economy,” she said.
Edit Typos
I love the attitude regarding environment.
Sadly, that’s what happens when you are in a Global south country like mine that is hold hostage by imperialist interests. The imperialist in collaboration with the compradors loot our resources, kill our local activists, demand lax environmental regulations to avoid anything that could hinder their profits and finally fund death squads(cartel members) to do their bidding. That’s why we have this meme that could easily apply to the US and European companies:
Translation:
- When you visit Canada
- When Canada visits you
I wasn’t negging! It actually gave me some hope environmental concerns would be taken into account. Is it misplaced hope?
From what I have seen and read, I have little hope on them taking into consideration the environment. There is still too much to do in this regard.
Also, I didn’t felt that as a negging. It is just that this aspect has been very negative and this part of the article tells what I feared:
- She emphasized that the environmental sector should not be seen as a restriction on development.
Oh, that’s unfortunate. What gave me hope was the follow up:
it’s meant for us to achieve better development, to do things better, to avoid making mistakes,
Of course mistakes will be made, we’re imperfect beings, and immediate needs will almost certainly take precedence over long term goals. I just feel there’s a healthier balance we can find. But politics are a whole other thing.
And it’s an interesting coincidence, I just finished listening to a shorter podcast by someone who was apparently influenced by Farrakhan, the topic being inertia. He wasn’t particularly poetic, but he was eloquent, and talked about how colonizers severed the connection between young people and elders, then stressed the communities, keeping people making decisions on stress hormones, them occasionally giving a treat for a dopamine hit, and likened being online or too much gaming and tv kept the dopamine hits coming, keeping our limbic system out of balance, always chasing the next dopamine hot, whole we need to be more concerned with delayed gratification and serotonin hits, and that’s why people feel disorganized and lack planning and organizational skills, as well as tolerance. He said we may not like lawyers, politicians, or our neighbors’ politics, but we really need to spend time talking with our neighbors, figure out immediate consensus, making a plan, then organizing and learning how to talk to lawyers and politicians so we can gather support there. And he said we aren’t going to get everything we want immediately and that’s where delayed gratification comes in.
He said we may not like lawyers, politicians, or our neighbors’ politics, but we really need to spend time talking with our neighbors, figure out immediate consensus, making a plan, then organizing and learning how to talk to lawyers and politicians so we can gather support there.
Oh yeah, regarding organizations, we have plenty fighting and pushing back against the destruction of the environment.
Let me put this into perspective with an example so you can have a clear view of what we are facing from this side.
70% of rivers in Mexico are contaminated . Out of all rivers, there is already one river so contaminated that it is directly the cause of the death of 2 600 people approximately and that river is called río Santiago. This river is in this state due to the discharge of toxic waste from some 250 industries and companies located along its course.
One of the main reasons behind the impact on rivers is the industrial deregulation that occurred in Mexico, especially since the entry into force of the North American free trade agreements(NAFTA) and the subsequent entry into force of the USMCA in 2020.
With this in mind, our main enemy is imperialism and the compradors that were directly complicit with the destruction of the environment(and other things as well because the list of crimes is very long and vast). As for the organizations, there are a lot already pushing anti imperialism and some results of this are shown with the increase to 69% of people holding an unfavorable view of the United States. Slowly but surely people are understanding the vile nature of the US. Using the example of the metaphor of the water droplets that break through the rock, we will someday win.
Hope I was able to provide a clear image of the problem and the small progress that we are having to raise awareness and class consciousness.
Thanks so much for sharing wth me.
One of the main reasons behind the impact on rivers is the industrial deregulation that occurred in Mexico, especially since the entry into force of the North American free trade agreements(NAFTA) and the subsequent entry into force of the USMCA in 2020.
I knew NAFTA raising the living standards of the Mexican people was a lie. I read the article about the contamination of the Santiago. I felt the bile rising in my throat, especially at the death of a child due to acute arsenic poisoning. A couple of decades ago, a governor of one of the US states had business dealings with an energy company. Under his tenure, that company dumped multiple hundreds of tons of coal ash into a municipal water supply lake. The citizens sued and won a few million dollars plus the company being required to clean the waste from the water supply; but the company appealed and got the monetary judgement cut nearly to nothing and was relieved of the cleanup. We will never know how many illnesses and deaths are attributable to that debacle.
The people, regardless of where they live, are right to be angry. I would love to see Mexican and Statesian regular people be able to come together and shut down these business practices, and then these businesses. Rather than stopping the
floorflow of immigration and contraband, I’m wondering if the flow of information is of more concern, at least to the US government?Do you have any faith in the current Mexican administration for addressing the pollution in any meaningful measure during President Scheinbaum’s tenure, or is that even anything she’s addressed at all? I was very happy she won the election, and she has a lot to address, but I hope it’s at least on her radar.
I would love to see Mexican and Statesian regular people be able to come together and shut down these business practices, and then these businesses. Rather than stopping the floor flow of immigration and contraband, I’m wondering if the flow of information is of more concern, at least to the US government?
In Mexico, we have plenty of alternative media and those are not targeted as it normally happens in the US.
Do you have any faith in the current Mexican administration for addressing the pollution in any meaningful measure during President Scheinbaum’s tenure, or is that even anything she’s addressed at all?
Due to the interest of the imperialist and compradors being closely tied to the continuation of the pollution of the environment, it will be difficult to say. The Mexican gov’t tried before to nationalize stuff and we got smacked by the US gov’t(example-> https://archive.ph/lMvES). This goes to show how limited the Mexican gov’t is in maneuvering through the imperialist interests.
I believe that we will not see sovereignty in our policies(including in the environmental sector) as long as the MX gov’t is not able to diversify the 80% of the exports that currently go to the US gov’t.
