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Is Industrial Mexico A Friend Or Foe To The U.S. Auto Sector?

By Nathaniel Parish Flannery

While some observers may see Mexico’s auto industry as a threat, others such as investors see it as an export platform with access to the United States, suggests COA’s Eric Farnsworth.

Over the last 20 years Mexico has emerged as a major automotive exporter. While Detroit has struggled to sustain itself as a world-leading automotive hub, Mexico has quietly become the world’s fourth largest automobile exporter. Chrysler builds HEMI engines and Ram pickup trucks in Saltillo, a city located 350 miles south of San Antonio in the Mexican state of Coahuila. General Motors builds Silverado pickup trucks in the state of Guanajuato, north of Mexico City. Mexico is actually home to North America’s largest car factory, a Volkswagen facility in Puebla that employs more than 16,000 people and produces more than 500,000 cars a year. Audi working on a billion dollar facility in Mexico. BMW and Nissan both have plans for billion dollar plants south of the U.S. border. Eric Farnsworth, the Vice President at the Council of the Americas in Washington D.C., told me “Investors see Mexico as an export platform with access to the United States.” While some observers may see Mexico’s auto industry as a threat to U.S. automobile production, a growing chorus of voices is advocating the concept of North American competitiveness....

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