MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s government on Tuesday warned Mexican companies that it would not be in their best “interests” to participate in the construction of U.S. President Donald Trump’s border wall, though there will be no legal restrictions or sanctions to stop them if they tried.

While some Mexican companies stand to potentially benefit from the controversial infrastructure project, residents south of the border view the wall and Trump’s repeated calls to have Mexico pay for it as offensive. That is putting public pressure on firms to abstain from participating.

“We’re not going to have laws to restrict (companies), but I believe considering your reputation it would undoubtedly be in your interest to not participate in the construction of the wall,” said Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.

“There won’t be a law with sanctions, but Mexicans and Mexican consumers will know how to value those companies that are loyal to our national identity and those that are not,” Guajardo added.

His comments echo those of Mexico’s foreign minister Luis Videgaray, who said on Friday that Mexican companies that see a business opportunity in the wall should “check their conscience” first.

Mexico’s Cemex , one of the world’s largest cement producers, has said it is open to providing quotes to supply the raw materials for the border wall. Competitor Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua has also signaled a readiness to work on the project.

Both companies have a strong presence in the United States.

Commenting on a media report published last week that stated Cemex will not participate in construction of the border wall, company spokesman Jorge Perez told Reuters: “I confirmed that we will not participate in the bidding process. That is all we have said.”

Asked if Cemex would be willing to provide raw materials, such as cement, to the companies eventually selected to build the wall, Perez said he could not comment.

The only Mexican company, out of some 720 in total, to put its name down on the U.S. government’s website for business opportunities as an interested vendor for the wall construction, is a small, four-member concern from the central city of Puebla that wants to provide LED lights that it imports mostly from China.

Mexican activists have called on consumers and local government officials to boycott that company, Ecovelocity.

Italian oil company Eni has discovered “meaningful” reserves of oil off the coast of Mexico after drilling the first well by an international oil company since Mexico opened up its long closed oil sector to private investment under a 2013 reform. The …and more »
Eni hits oil in first offshore Mexico well – Financial Times

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross thinks a minimum wage hike is important — for workers in Mexico.

In a television interview Friday, he argued that one of the problems with NAFTA is that the minimum wage in Mexico hasn’t climbed as fast as it should.

“The theory of NAFTA had been [there would be a] gradual convergence of living standards between Mexico and the United States,” he said on CNBC. “That really hasn’t happened on the Mexican side. The minimum wage…has barely gone up in peso terms.”

That means that employers can still find significantly cheaper labor in Mexico. It also means that Mexican workers don’t have the money to buy higher-priced U.S.-made goods.

He made a similar point at his confirmation hearing. “The minimum wage in Mexico has barely changed in pesos for quite a few years. And the peso has depreciated quite a lot against the dollar,” he told senators. “So on a purchasing power basis, the average Mexican worker is far worse off than he or she was five or 10 years ago. That was not the original intent of NAFTA.”
Ross is wrong when he says that the Mexican minimum wage has “barely gone up in peso terms.” The Mexican minimum wage has increased 11 times since 2009, rising by about 50%. The U.S. minimum wage has not increased since 2009.
But even with all those increases, the Mexican minimum wage is a fraction of the U.S. minimum wage. Workers there must be paid at least 80 pesos a day, which works out to only about $4. The U.S. minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, or $58 for an 8-hour day.
Ross wasn’t asked on either occasion what he thought about the campaign to raise the minimum wage in the U.S. But in the past the billionaire secretary has opposed the idea. He argued that a higher minimum wage would hurt workers because they will be replaced by robots and automation.

“They ought to be running ads against the minimum wage increases saying ‘Only robots want the higher minimum wage,'” he told Fox Business in November 2015.
The Commerce department did not respond to a request for comment from Ross on the U.S. or Mexican minimum wages
During Trump’s campaign, he was all over the place on his minimum wage views. At one point he said it was “too high,” then he said he would support raising it to $10 an hour.
The U.S. minimum wage workers in the U.S. have also lost ground due to inflation. The U.S. minimum would need to be $8.21 an hour today to the same purchasing power that the $7.25 minimum wage had in 2009, the last time the U.S. minimum wage increased.

APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico’s largest semi-automated terminal, received its first official vessel call today with the arrival of the 9,600 TEU capacity Maersk Salalah on the AC2 Transpacific service from Asia.

“This is a milestone as we add an additional operational terminal to our portfolio. A priority for us is to transition terminals under implementation into operation, and make them as efficient as possible to support our customers.” said Morten H. Engelstoft, CEO of APM Terminals.

“We have a significant portfolio across Latin America, and this will be our second terminal in Mexico after Yucatan. We are pleased to be a contributor in helping Mexico to reach its growth ambitions,” Morten added.

APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas is state-of-the-art with semi-automated processes that are geared toward delivering higher productivity and availability for clients as well as contributing to Mexican trade growth by offering a new gateway for commerce between the second-largest economy in Latin America and the rest of the world.

“Mexico is a core part of our strategy of investing in growth markets and building stateof-the-art facilities to run more efficiently the supply chain from the heart of Mexico to Asia and the rest of the Americas,” says Jose Rueda, Managing Director for APM Terminals in Mexico.

“The technology in this terminal will bring increased predictability and efficiency to our shipping line customers, whilst ensuring the highest levels of safety for our employees and supply chain partners.” he adds.

“In addition to servicing ships, the new terminal in Lazaro Cardenas will enable us to further contribute to the nation’s growth story and long-term competitiveness by offering efficient, safe and reliable terminal services to producers and manufacturers. With the capacity to receive the world’s biggest ships and provide additional connectivity inland via our terminal at Cuautitlan Izcalli, in the industrial zone of Mexico City which is surrounded by over 200 onward distribution centers, we are in a unique position to facilitate trade for the country,” says Rueda.

With the first phase of the terminal complete, APM Terminals Lazaro Cardenas occupies an area of 49 hectares, with a quay of 750 meters in length for ships and a depth of 16.5m, deep enough to receive some of the world’s largest ships. The terminal is connected to five rail tracks and offers gate services for land-side customers.

By the final phase of the terminal buildout, which is scheduled to happen between 2027 and 2030, the terminal’s water depth will increase to 18m.

By then, the terminal will have a quay 1.5 km long in a total area of 102 hectares and a capacity of 4.1 million TEUs, operated by 15 STS cranes and 10 rail tracks, providing intermodal access. By the final phase, the total investment cost will come to US$900 million.

Mexico handles Latin America’s third largest container volume, behind only Brazil and Panama.

MEXICO CITY: Mexico is increasingly confident that US President Donald Trump will not be able to impose harsh barriers on imports anytime soon, and officials signalled they may hit their northern neighbour’s most trade-sensitive districts in case he does.

Trump wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, but talks cannot begin until he triggers a 90-day notice period by informing Congress. Nominees for several important US posts including trade representative and agriculture secretary have not yet been confirmed.

“As long as our counterparts in Washington don’t define their objectives … today NAFTA regulates trade, so we are not in a hurry to change anything,” Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said at an event on Thursday.

The view of some Mexican officials and business leaders that the US Congress, Supreme Court and some state governors are counterweights to Trump has also been reflected in markets, with the peso rallying in recent days to its strongest since Trump’s election in November.

“Time has in some way meant that the pumpkins have fallen into place in our favour,” Guajardo later told local radio, using an expression in Spanish.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Trump said he supported some form of border tax to boost jobs. But such a tax would meet resistance in Congress from fiscally conservative Republicans and Democrats.

Moises Kalach, from the business group CCE and one of the lead private-sector NAFTA negotiators with the Mexican government, told Reuters that such hurdles could temper Trump’s plans.

“They balance it out so that this will be done with an institutional methodology, and not through social media,” he said. “At home, we’re ready, we’re ready for what’s coming.”

Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said if the United States taxed Mexican imports, Mexico would “hit them where it hurts,” two Mexican newspapers reported, based on recordings they obtained of a closed meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday.

Videgaray warned of tariffs targeting congressional districts and states most reliant on exports to Mexico, giving as examples Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin.

Mexico’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the reports.

Videgaray referred to a strategy Mexico used in 2009, slapping locally focused tariffs on 90 US products in a dispute over trucks using US roads. Mexico’s trucks were eventually allowed back and the tariffs lifted.

Comments by US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to Fox Business Network that the NAFTA renegotiation could be win-win and would not change anything soon calmed nerves in Mexico on Thursday, where Videgaray met with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

WASHINGTON — The foreign ministers of Mexico and Canada presented a unified front ahead of potential trade talks with Donald Trump’s administration, stressing the North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited all three countries.

Mexico’s Luis Videgaray and Canada’s Chrystia Freeland said NAFTA should be renegotiated with all three nations seated at the table, rather than in bilateral discussions.

“We very much recognize that NAFTA is a three-country agreement,’’ Freeland said Tuesday at a panel discussion with Videgaray in Toronto ahead of private trade talks. ‘‘We really value our relationship with Mexico.’’

Their talks come after Trump said trade with Canada only needed a ‘‘tweak’’ as opposed to a more thorough re-set with Mexico, a comment he made after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to the White House last week.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is moving ahead with plans to build two auto parts plants in Mexico despite getting previous grief from U.S. President Donald Trump over another production plant, according to reports by AFP and other outlets.

Ford’s stock was up 0.3 percent today closing at $12.58 per share, according Yahoo Finance. Ford’s stock is up 3.7 percent so far this year, according to Google Finance.

Mexico is Arizona’s top trading partner and the state has an auto supply chain sector. Arizona is also a growing hub for driverless car research including from General Motors (NYSE: GM), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and Google parent Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL).

“The plants, in the central state of Guanajuato and the northern city of Chihuahua, will make engines and transmissions,” according to the AFP report.

Ford ditched plans for a $1.6 billion small-car production plant after getting grief from Trump.

Trump is pushing for more manufacturing in the U.S. and has talked about a 20 percent tax on imports. He’s met with the CEOs of automakers, tech firms and other businesses at the White House.

Trump visited a Boeing (NYSE: BA) plant in South Carolina Friday promising more manufacturing jobs and tax cuts.

GM was up to $37.22 per share Friday a 0.51 percent gain. General Motors is up 6.8 percent this year, according to Google Finance.

Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA) was up 1.22 percent ending the week at $272.23, according to Yahoo Finance.

All Nippon Airways was to launch direct flights between Narita Airport and Mexico City on Wednesday, the first such flights to Mexico operated by a major Japanese airline company. The move is expected to strengthen Narita’s position as an international hub connecting Asia and the Western Hemisphere.

The company plans to operate daily direct flights to and from Mexico City using its fleet of Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Due to Mexico City’s altitude of more than 2,000 meters above sea level, ANA has refitted aircraft for use on the route with enhanced Rolls-Royce engines.

According to the timetable, flights departing Narita at 4:40 p.m. will arrive at Mexico City at 1:55 p.m. the same day. Returning flights departing Mexico City at 1:00 a.m. arrive back at Narita at 6:35 a.m. the next day. The about 14½-hour flights on the return trip will be ANA’s longest.

The company has established a system in which travelers to Mexico can purchase not only ANA tickets but also those of connecting flights on Mexico’s domestic carriers Aeromexico and Interjet.

Behind ANA’s strategy is the fact that Mexico has become a major destination for Japanese direct investment, with the total amount having increased by 170 percent in the five years from 2010. Major automakers such as Nissan Motor Co. are already operating in Mexico.

ANA began to consider opening a direct route to Mexico approximately three years ago in a bid to respond to growing demand for business trips to the country. As of early February, the first flight from Narita was fully booked, and about 70 percent of the seats on February flights had already been sold.

The reservation rate — higher than for flights to U.S. destinations — matched ANA’s expectations. For March flights, more than 40 percent of seats had been reserved.

ANA has included in its mid-term management plan toward fiscal 2020 a plan to expand new flight routes to destinations in Central and South America as well as cities in Asia, two regions known in the company as “blank areas.”

ANA went ahead with its original plan to open the route despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has cast a chill over the business environment in Mexico, including Japanese companies operating there.

ANA President and CEO Osamu Shinobe told The Japan News: “Mexico is an important production base for Japanese companies. We expect demand for air travel [to Mexico] will stably expand.”

The new flights are poised to help Narita become a major hub on the western Pacific Rim.

During the past Chinese Lunar New Year holiday season, groups of travelers from Singapore were seen rushing to make their connections to international flights at Narita.

In recent years, competition to become a hub for Asia has intensified among international airports in Asia. According to Narita International Airport Corp. (NAA), the airport had 313 flights a week bound for destinations in North America, while Incheon International in South Korea had 188 and Shanghai’s Pudong International had 158 as of November 2016. However, Narita’s edge in the number of flights is offset by its comparatively small total number of international passengers.

According to the Airports Council International’s rankings, 30.54 million passengers used Narita for international flights in 2015, while 48.72 million passed through Incheon for the same purpose. Narita ranked 17th and Incheon was 8th on the list of airports with the most international passengers.

More Asian airline companies could launch direct flights from their countries to North America, thanks to improvements in the fuel economy of aircraft. Given such a trend, NAA opened last October a directly operated passenger lounge at Terminal 1 for international travelers to make transits easier.

Narita’s plan to construct a new third runway is another effort to further internationalize.

“Narita remains in a dominant position in Asia when you look at connectivity with North American destinations. We will continue to broaden our network by making transit times shorter, so that our airport is even more convenient to use,” NAA President and CEO Makoto Natsume told The Japan News.

The scene in the Oval Office was remarkable: the foreign minister of Mexico — the very country that Donald Trump had turned into a campaign-trail ­piñata — huddled with now-President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The men were debating what Trump would say in a speech later that day as he ordered construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexican diplomat, Luis Videgaray, and Kushner, a White House senior adviser, had concluded that the remarks as drafted would upend the two countries’ fragile relationship, so together they urged Trump to soften his language about Mexico.

The trio arrived at a compromise, according to a half-dozen U.S. and Mexican officials who detailed the encounter. Trump, understanding that Mexicans would hang on his every word, agreed to state that a strong Mexico was in the best interests of the United States. In Mexico City that afternoon, Jan. 25, officials welcomed Trump’s remarks as the most encouraging statement he had given to date about Mexico — and they celebrated Kushner as a moderating influence.

Relations ruptured anew only hours later, however, after a war of words between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto — punctuated by an angry Twitter missive from Trump the next morning while Videgaray was back at the White House.

Trump promised a foreign policy based on unpredictability, and by that measure, he is delivering. The messy episode involving a neighbor and longtime ally encapsulates his administration’s emerging foreign policy, one that mingles the president’s public bellicosity with Kushner’s behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Although Kushner, 36, has no traditional foreign policy experience, he has become the primary point of contact for presidents, ministers and ambassadors from more than two dozen countries, helping lay the groundwork for agreements, according to U.S. and foreign officials with knowledge of the contacts. He has had extensive talks with many of these diplomats, including in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, the officials said.

Kushner’s back-channel communications with Mexico — the full extent of which has not been previously reported — reveal him to be almost a shadow secretary of state, operating outside the boundaries of the State Department or the National Security Council.

Videgaray had come to the White House on Jan. 25 for a full day of private meetings, but it was Kushner who gave him a heads-up that Trump would deliver a speech that afternoon at the Department of Homeland Security where he would sign an executive order on his signature border wall.

And it was Kushner who led Videgaray into the Oval Office for an unscheduled audience with the president, where together they made their case to Trump for a more measured discussion of Mexico.

The president agreed.

“We also understand that a strong and healthy economy in Mexico is very good for the United States — very, very good,” Trump said in his speech. “I truly believe we can enhance the relation between our two nations to a degree not seen before, certainly in a very, very long time.”

But Videgaray and Kushner’s victory was short-lived.

So strong were the anti-Trump political winds at home that Peña Nieto felt compelled to go on television that night to declare that Mexico would never pay for the border wall.

This angered Trump, who tweeted at 8:55 Eastern time the next morning that he and Peña Nieto should cancel their upcoming summit if Mexico refused to pay for the wall. Peña Nieto called off the visit and in a brief phone call instructed Videgaray — back at the White House for another round of meetings — to leave and come home.

The mission was aborted, according to the officials’ accounts, and Kushner seethed with frustration at the outcome. Kushner declined to be interviewed.

Some of the leaders who have dealt with Kushner said they were initially skeptical but found him to be a good listener and courteous intermediary who quickly intuits the core of their issues and can facilitate meetings throughout the administration.

One of his top ambitions is to help broker peace in the Middle East — something with which the president has publicly tasked him — and Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, quietly has taken an active role in helping select ambassadors to that region.

“Everyone is trying to get to know Jared Kushner,” said the ambassador from one U.S. ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. Many ambassadors were loath to put even their positive thoughts about Kushner on the record for fear of jeopardizing what has become their most important contact in Trump’s Washington.

Some U.S. companies are going ahead with plans to invest in Mexico despite President Donald Trump’s vows to talk businesses into keeping their assembly lines in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The businesses include Rexnord Corp., whose factory in Indianapolis, Ind., was singled out by Trump last December for firing workers amid plans to move their jobs to Mexico, the Journal said.

“It just puzzles me to think that they have to [reduce costs] by dumping us out,” Gary Canter, a machinist at the Rexnord factory, told the Journal. “It’s very un-American.”

“We gave this man a chance because it wasn’t a typical politician that’s done nothing for us,” Canter said.

According to the Journal, others are:

Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar, which is moving ahead with a restructuring that includes shifting jobs from a Joliet, Ill., factory to Monterrey, Mexico.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor, which is going ahead with Japan’s JFE Steel to build a new plant in Mexico.
Manitowoc Foodservice Inc, which has laid off about 80 workers at a factory near Sellersburg, Ind., as part of its already announced plans to shift much of the production to facilities in Mexico.
Ford Motor Co., which though it’s scrapping plans to build a new factory in Mexico and instead create 700 new U.S. job, announced last month it would still shift production of its Focus small car from Michigan to an existing Mexican facility.
General Motors Co., which is moving more production to Mexico even as it’s continuing with pre-election plans to add more jobs in the United States.