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Comment by pkaye | Hacker News Reader

Mexico is becoming the new China for manufacturing. Even many Chinese companies are building factories there. Also recently Mexico is offering work visas for workers from central America. Check out this Wendover video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXT46osICdY

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they are just using Mexico as a way to get around tariffs and other trade restrictions. On paper it might say "Mexico" is the biggest trade partner for the US, but the reality all the stuff is still coming from China with an extra hop to do final assembly in Mexico. China is doing the same thing with manufacturing in Vietnam, all the money still flows back to China in the end

Mexico has none of the actual infrastructure or skilled workforce needed to be an actual manufacturing powerhouse that makes things from scratch

And Apple did the same thing when Cook prostrated himself before Trump pretending like “Macs were being manufactured in America” when it was actually only a few Mac Pros and they were doing final assembly here.

What does the Vietnam hop enable, India?

> Mexico has none of the actual infrastructure or skilled workforce needed to be an actual manufacturing powerhouse

Care to share your sources?

> China is doing the same thing with manufacturing in Vietnam, all the money still flows back to China in the end

Eh they do a lot in Vietnam in reality. And yeah Chinese own a lot of these factories directly or indirectly, but a lot of the money (and the toxic fumes) stays in Vietnam.

"Mexico has none of the actual infrastructure or skilled workforce needed to be an actual manufacturing powerhouse that makes things from scratch"

What people forget is that starting with assembly is one of the basic things needed to get a leg-in into ramping up into a manufacturing powerhouse.

Isn't this how china got its start in tech in the 90s? all the "smart" people were in US/western countries and they just used china as a final assembly spot. but in doing so gave china the access to all the cool stuff, which they used to learn about it and build it themselves.

Wasn't Mexico like that in the '90s? I remember GPUs, ThinkPads and a lot of PC hardware were made in Mexico back then.

And then suddenly, as if overnight, everything moved to China.

That is true. But now China is getting expensive and the population is getting older fast and the Chinese leadership is getting less predicable. Mexico meanwhile is much younger and labor cost is lower than China. Its a neighboring country and part of a free trade agreement. Canada and Mexico now at par with China in their total trade with US. The threat of future pandemic and global conflicts and their impact on supply chains has made companies more cautious. Its of just offshoring, its instead onshoring, nearshoring or friendshoring. A lot of the stuff onshoring will be higher value or those of national security or highly automatable.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-largest-trading-partners...

Doesn’t matter. It’s a cultural thing. Mexico can get as young as they like. Won’t matter. Look at the work culture in China vs Mexico. That’s where all the answers lie.

Yep. https://www.wired.com/2001/11/flex/

Yes. Mexico was a manufacturing powerhouse until PNTR shifted all of that to China.

[0] - https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/20...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_normal_trade_relatio...

> Mexico is becoming the new China for manufacturing.

Yes, people claimed that during the era of the maquiladoras... it has not materialized 30 years after.

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