Mexico-China cold trade war warms

MXPE Weekly Essentials ft. beware unprofitable banks, avocado’s back on the menu, and other highlights in Mexican politics, policy, and markets from the past week.

MXPE Weekly Essentials. Only the most important news in Mexican politics, policy, and markets from the past week.

Last week’s highlights:

• China trade war—This week the Chinese ambassador to Mexico wrote about what he implied was the disinformation surrounding the exporting of Chinese “overproduction”. He justified it as a completely legitimate industrial policy and in no way deserving of the sort of tariffs Mexico had imposed on many “Asian” products—which everyone understands to mean Chinese imports.
  Whether these tariffs have worked as they should is still doubted by Mexican producers who still see Chinese goods either being brought in for cheap (or smuggled) into the country. Notably, though, credit for Chinese autos—with a 50% tariff on them—has fallen in the past months, despite an increase in the rest of car sales. It is worth noting that while the likes of Nissan have their own financing companies in Mexico, Chinese banks must rely on alliances with local banks to give out auto loans.
  Separately, the same week the ambassador published his protestations, China imposed a 54% tariff on Mexican pecan exporters for alleged dumping.