Mexico must unleash its private sector
Despite ideal conditions for growth, Mexico is stagnating — the culprit is domestic policy, not Trump's tariffs.
这篇文章分析了墨西哥经济的现状。尽管受益于“近岸外包”和与美国的贸易增长，墨西哥经济却步履蹒跚。文章指出，主要问题并非来自外部，而是执政党Morena推行的国内政策，如削弱独立监管机构、加强国家对能源的控制以及非正规经济的庞大规模。为实现经济复苏，新总统谢因鲍姆需改革社会保障体系、简化税法并进一步开放能源市场，以释放私营部门的潜力。
Mexico should be prospering. It benefits from tension between the United States and China: the “nearshoring” of supply chains on which American businesses rely means more factories are going up across North America. Mexico has become America’s largest trading partner. It has been partly shielded from President Donald Trump’s tariffs by the free-trade zone the two countries share with Canada. Trade in high-tech products is booming. Foreign direct investment grew last year even as it fell in other emerging markets.
USMCA（美墨加协定）是北美三国间的自由贸易协定，取代了NAFTA。它旨在促进区域贸易，减少关税壁垒。对墨西哥而言，这意味着与美国和加拿大有更紧密的经济联系，尤其是在供应链和制造业方面。
And yet the economy is limping, not sprinting. After averaging annual growth of just 2% over the past two decades, GDP expanded by a paltry 0.8% in 2025, the lowest rate in years (the covid-19 pandemic aside). Income per person has slid back to the level of 2017. Domestic investment is contracting.
Pinning the blame on Mr Trump will not work. The new tariffs that he has applied are indeed unhelpful. His constant bashing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which he negotiated in his first term—and which is now under formal review—is unsettling. But the American president is not the big headache. Indeed, exports grew by 7.6% last year, leading to Mexico’s first trade surplus since 2020. The country’s worst problems are domestic—and self-inflicted.
Since taking power in 2018 Morena, the ruling party, has pushed through constitutional reforms that actively undermine the economy. Judges must now be elected, adding to legal uncertainty. Independent regulators have been subverted, or abolished outright. The state has entrenched its control of the energy system, locking out badly needed private capital even as government debt soars. Rather than undertake tax reforms, the government has been shaking down large firms to raise more cash. All this comes on top of the perennial problems of crime and insecurity caused by rampant drug gangs.
Morena党是墨西哥的左翼政党，由前总统洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔创立。该党在2018年上台后，推行了一系列改革，旨在加强国家对经济的控制，尤其是在能源领域，并承诺打击腐败。
This is not a crisis. Mexico has sound monetary policy, with a floating exchange rate and a respected, independent central bank. But the economy risks succumbing to a more chronic condition: low growth. To give her credit, President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in 2024, understands this. Plan Mexico, her six-year strategy, identifies low investment as the worst problem for the economy. It contains some useful ideas, such as tax breaks for research, training and investment. But to truly rejuvenate an anaemic economy she needs to direct her energies at the underlying issues holding back her country.
Most important is the size of the informal economy. Over half of Mexico’s workers toil in it, a proportion that has not changed in decades. Off-the-books employers tend not to invest in their businesses, leaving them low-tech and inefficient. For investment to grow in the long run more workers need to join the formal sector. To encourage this Ms Sheinbaum should scrap the two-tier social-security system, which is based on payroll taxes and discourages formal jobs. She should replace it with a universal system funded by taxes on consumption. Coupled with less onerous regulation and a simpler tax code, this would allow the investible formal sector to expand, and the economy to grow.
非正规经济指未被政府监管、不纳税、不提供社会保障的经济活动。在许多发展中国家，非正规经济规模庞大，其从业者通常收入不稳定，缺乏劳动保障，也阻碍了国家税收和正规投资。
A patchy electricity system is also curbing growth. Changes made to the constitution by Morena have entrenched the controlling role of the state, but the state has no money to invest. Now the party is backtracking. A new model that allows private firms to take minority stakes in state-run energy projects is a welcome start. But Ms Sheinbaum should go much further. The government should break from the party line and let private investors back their own energy projects.
Morena—under its founder, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and now under his protégée, Ms Sheinbaum—has shown itself willing to rewrite Mexico’s constitution to meet party goals. In doing so it has won wide popular support, becoming perhaps the most powerful left-wing party in the democratic world. Ms Sheinbaum still has time to use this power to help her people get richer. If she does not, Mexico is doomed to keep limping along. Squandered potential is a form of impoverishment, too.