The Boom of the Mexican Automotive Industry: From NAFTA to USMCA

Abstract

After half a century of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and becoming one of the three hotspots in the global automotive industry, Mexico has been unable to advance in upgrading and catching-up, other than in processes—not in terms of products and even less so in design. Furthermore, it does not have its own industry and largely depends on cheap labor to preserve its competitiveness. In comparison with the Asian entrepreneurial state, what we have referred to as the Mexican syndrome, represents the unintentional effects of being inundated by global value chains (GVCs) and FDI flows.