https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/business/economy/united-states-china-mexico-trade.html
The United States bought more goods from Mexico than China in 2023 for the first time in 20 years, evidence of how much global trade patterns have shifted.
If some Americans I disagree with want fewer immigrants coming here, then a more stable Mexico would encourage Mexicans and other Spanish speaking immigrants to stay in Mexico. Mexicans wouldn't immigrate to the USA, and Guatemalans and so on would stop at stable and prosperous Mexico rather than making the further journey to the culturally estranged USA. Instead of building the wall, we'd make Mexico a net.
"Despite working long hours doing many times strenuous and dangerous work, maquila workers earn only 50 cents to 1 dollar per hour."
Current minimum wage is closer to 2 dollars an hour, still a long way to go but that's not considering benefits and pretty much all transportation and two meals a day are taken care of (in the city where I work).
It sucks but it's much better than outside the maquiladora market.
In fact the article you posted in more ways than that, I guess it's not updated since a long time ago but since always extra time has been paid at double the rate for the first 9 hours and triple rate for the next ones (maximum of 12 hours per week).
Thanks for the additional info. Sorry - that article I posted was not very well researched - I should have looked for something better, but was just making a point that inequity is still a big problem in a "prosperous" Mexico.
I appreciate you also confirming that working conditions in maquiladoras are accountable to some decent standards, and that they provide additional benefits - overtime pay rates being one of them, which is encouraging to hear - I wonder if that was due to labor unions or not.
Clearly, they are better places to work than many other local options. So for sure, not everything about maquiladoras is negative - and they are certainly not the root cause of disparity in North America. Thanks again for correcting the perception I might have given with that article.
Yeah, unions in mexico advanced legislation a lot in the last century, although legislation had become stagnant when the right wing party was in power for 12 years
Covid showed that supply chains halfway across the world are a problem when there is a big disaster and a stronger Mexico could be a good partner for US immigration concerns. China having less influence is the cherry on top for em.
Logistics my man. It's easier and cheaper to walk down the street to get some milk than it is to get in your car, burn gas, drive for several miles, pick up the milk, then drive back. Mexico doing well is as good as Canada doing well. Strong neighbors are our biggest advantage.
While this is true, over seas shipment is actually incredibly cheap and efficient. I'm sure Mexico also has great shipping lanes to but cheap overseas shipping is why fruit is packed in countries 1000s of miles apart from where it is grown.
Sir we're turning cargo ships back into ones that use sails instead of engines due to the extremely high cost of using diesel as well as the apocalyptic climate cost. We can ship shit from Mexico to us using semitrucks. Land. That's so much more cost efficient I struggle to put it into words.
Semitrucks are some of the least efficient vehicles we have. They burn like 15x the amount of fuel to bring a container 1 mile compared to a cargo ship. They’re also one of the harder vehicles to electrify as we decarbonize. In general, boats are more efficient than trains which are more efficient than trucks, and by a lot. Also, much of the US’ imports from Mexico arrive by sea because northern Mexico is very mountainous and rural. Other than factories built along the US border, it’s impractical to ship over land.
They burn like 15x the amount of fuel to bring a container 1 mile compared to a cargo ship.
First, source? Second, when the cargo ship is also going over 15x the distance, it'd better be effective at longer ranges. Third, trucking is how you get cargo containers from the dock to where it needs to go. Expanding on that existing system and scrapping some of the cargo ships that are already overutilized just seems like it would be better for everyone. Faster, cheaper, strategic. And even if we do still have to ship by sea, the distance goes from fucking China to neighbor.
I never said that trucks don’t serve a purpose, they’re just really inefficient for long-distance transportation. If we’re maximizing for fuel efficiency, cargo is shipped to the nearest port to its destination, loaded on a train if the destination is further inland, and then a truck takes it the last mile to its destination.
Regarding a source look at the table under “US freight transport” on this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
semitrucks
trains too. they're trying to improve the eagle pass area (much in the news, thanks to dipshit abbott) https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/new-u-s-mexico-trade-corridor-eyed/
It is unquestionably better for the environment to use a more sustainable form of transit but the above comment I was replying to spoke mainly about logistics something that our routes with China have mastered and not that we can't do the same or better with Mexico.
The comment you replied to being mine which explained it's easier and cheaper to get something from a neighbor than the literal other side of the world. Correct. I believe your position was the opposite of that statement.
You are correct if they use trains however more than likely they will use traditional transport trucks which when accounted for the cost of each item is actually more expensive than shipping by barge of course this is offset if the point is far from a coast or shipping yard because then they would use traditional transport shipping as well.
I guess the point I made inproperly was that it's more complicated than saying it's closer so it's better