‘OK, Mexico, Save Me’: After China, This Is Where Globalization May Lead

A Troubled Legacy

The biggest impediment to Mexico’s reaching its potential as an alternative to China may be Mexico itself.

Its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has neglected the nation’s infrastructure, including its ports.

Even Mr. Presburger, an enthusiastic promoter of his country’s industrial virtues, concedes that Mexico will struggle to amass the scope of China’s manufacturing capacity.

He recalled his first trip to China to look for fabric more than a decade ago. The scope of production left him astonished, with monumental spinning mills alongside specialized dying operations.

“The sheer size of the factories there is crazy,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a way back from that. It’s not going to be easy.”

Inside his factory, he displayed a popular item, a black bomber jacket adorned with an elaborate and colorful pattern. The zipper was made in Mexico, and so was a skull-shaped ornament that pulled it. But the rest of the components — the fabric, the thread, the liner — were all made across the Pacific.

Still, a shift is palpable.

Near Preslow’s plant, an enormous factory makes as many as six million buttons per day, employing some 1,500 people. The company, Botones Loren, has seen its sales grow by nearly two-thirds over the past year. Its customers — international brands like Armani and Men’s Warehouse — are shifting orders from China, said the company’s chief executive, Sony Chalouah.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/business/mexico-china-us-trade.html