MXPE Weekly Essentials

Immigrants turn the economics on their head, doing investors dirty, fentanyl=vaping, and other highlights in Mexican politics, policy, and markets from the past week.

The economics of mass deportation are bizarre. One worry when faced with the incoming Trump administration’s promise to deport a million people a year is that Mexico will be hit with a sudden influx of unemployed coupled with a fall in the remittance dollars it has come to depend on.

Mexico received over $17 billion dollars in remittances in both the second and third quarters of 2024. That is about 3.5% of the country’s GDP. Mass deportations would certainly disrupt the historic highs Mexico’s been seeing, but not in the straightforward way one might imagine.