Adam Torres and Alex Gonzalez Ormerod discuss The Mexico Political Economist.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Alex Gonzalez Ormerod, Founder of The Mexico Political Economist, explore the past, present and future relationship between Mexico and the United States along with the launch of The Mexico Political Economist.
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About Alex Gonzalez Ormerod
Alex González Ormerod is a Mexican editor, writer, and historian. He has worked as Editor-in-Chief at publications like Contxto and El Equilibrista—Mexico’s oldest surviving independent publishing house. His writing can be found online at Contxto, Letras Libres, Literal Magazine, and Nexos.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. I’m proud to announce that today we’re at the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California. And I have Alex Gonzalez Omurad on the line, who is a speaker, just left stage. Love to get speakers just off stage. First off, Alex, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me, Adam. All right, so you just got off stage. Talk a little bit about your content and what you were talking about. So, fresh off the stage and It was lovely, it was Chatham House Rules, so I can’t say any of the controversial things we talked about, but it was basically Mexican investment, is it worth it or not, I think I can safely say that the panel, at least, was very much bullish on Mexico, so that’s something I’m trying to sort of like bring out and talk about around the world, but also talking about Mexico.
the difficulties, the challenges, what actually is going on in Mexico right now, why are people so interested in it? Let’s talk about it. Now, is this your first time to Milken Conference or have you been before? It’s my first time in LA. Oh, amazing. I love it. Well, what brought you to the conference this year?
Why did you feel that like having representation, having these ideals from Mexico was important to be at this specific conference? So I’m, I’m lucky enough to know the Milken folks who looked for me and try to find an expert who More or less where politics and economics sort of touch in Mexico, right?
Don’t know if your audience has heard much about it, but right now Mexico is having a sort of Mexico moment. That means nearshoring, that means investment, that means Mexico right now is seeing a boom in terms of economic growth, in terms of investment. How much of a boom, I think, is a conversation we can have at some point.
To me, what’s important is to come here and talk to an American audience, which I think is crucial, to understand Mexico a bit more, beyond the politicking that we’re always seeing. This is a far more integrated relationship that we have between the US and Mexico. And it’s something we need to understand very deeply before we move any of these essential, I don’t know, I don’t, the, the, the knobs and sort of switches of the relationship.
You move something here and the farmers in Iowa suddenly aren’t selling as much, or you move another knob over here and suddenly there’s a drought in Northern Mexico. So to me, it’s a really important issue on both sides of the border. What so I know you can’t talk about the speaking side of it, but that being said, what should Investors be thinking as they start whether it’s a near shoring or otherwise like the things we’re hearing in the news about going on In mexico.
So what should investors be thinking as they think about allocating capital, south so to speak So it really depends on your industry. I mean i’ve i’ve i’ve Failed people for for less. It’s always complex. Never say it’s complex, but it’s complex It’s important to note that because Every state, every region within Mexico has its own expertise, right?
Semiconductors. There are some places in central Mexico and northern Mexico that are really primed to start getting the supply chain of semiconductors to Mexico. So if you’re interested in that, that’s where you want to be. You want to be where all the televisions are being made, all the cars are being made.
If you’re more into finance, Mexico City is your place to be. So really, understand the geography. The political landscape as well is very physical in Mexico as it is everywhere, right? Like in America, you’ve got the liberal coasts and the sort of conservative core. In Mexico, you’ve got something similar, right?
You’ve got the sort of very entrepreneurial north. You’ve got the, the sort of like lefty progressive center and south, and that changes the way you board things in very interesting ways. So keeping an eye on how politics works in Mexico, policy. specifically, I think is key beyond the metrics, which I’m sure your readers have ample access to.
So, Mexico political economist, like, tell me a little bit more. So, the idea was born because I was very lucky to have some of the great movers and shakers of American policy in Mexico. They were sort of doing a fact finding mission, Mexico moment, right? Yeah. And they, you know, They decided to come down. I won’t say any names because I, I, I want to respect their privacy, but these are the people who are whispering into Mr.
Biden and Mr. Trump’s ear. And I was shocked because they had no idea. They had no idea about Mexico. And I thought about it and I said, I can’t blame them. I mean, They do great work, Washington Post, New York Times, they’re colleagues, I know them, but their audience is broad. They’re a broad church. They can’t cover all of Mexico.
They’ve got some really great coverage, but they can’t hone in to the really nitty gritty. They’ve got to be on the day to day. For sure. And then local Mexican journalism, even if it’s good, I mean, and even if you read Spanish, you need to have been born with, like, initials and inside jokes, like, Yeah.
carved into your mind. So I said, there’s an enormous and fundamentally important space here that we need to fill as soon as possible, which is what the Mexico political economist is trying to fill, which is basically, what if I don’t understand the inside of baseball of Mexican politics? Yeah, I’m interested in investing doing policy surrounding Mexico.
How do I quickly get up to speed? So that’s what we’re trying to do. So, what has been the response from that so far? Like, the idea, especially bringing a new lens, we’ll say from the local news or from otherwise, because that can be tricky. You’re absolutely right, because, of course, because I’m in the middle of these two extremes.
That’s other people’s, like, playground, there’s media, there’s, like, you know, it’s a thing, it’s a thing. And you don’t want to be condescending to the people who know. No, you’re not saying that, yeah. But you don’t want to, like, go away. It’s another audience, yeah. No, but you don’t want to go way ahead of the people who don’t know.
And weirdly enough, you sort of want to draw on them both, right? And so what’s really been interesting to me is getting that right. I’ve been really lucky to get a lot of feedback from really great like, you know, like stakeholders, right? Like from the USA to folks at Bloomberg. And I’ve been very flattered to find them.
really enjoying the content and also a very, the nicest thing I’ve ever heard about the Mexico political economist is a journalist colleague of mine said, I’ve got a colleague who’s been researching this very topic for a year and a half and you kicked out of the park in a week. Wow. So to me, that’s what’s important, right?
Let’s get, let’s ignore the politicking of every day, but let’s get to the issues quickly. And luckily we’ve got the access. We’re based in Mexico city, but we’re speaking to a global audience, right? And this isn’t just America, even though America is probably the most important. So we’re talking India, we’re talking, how does Mexico triangulate this weird trade war between China and the United States to us?
It’s essential for people to understand this before they make any moves, really. Mm. So what, what has been some of the, the feedback I’d say from abroad? So we talked about from, you know, internally in Mexico, but abroad, like what’s been some of the feedback? So to me, what’s been really interesting, a bit of self critique.
I’ve really tried to hone into what’s the lowest common denominator that people know about Mexico, right? I’m consistently shocked. And this is, this is a symptom of the United States still being a superpower and still being very much involved in itself, right? I don’t want to say self involved because they do care about the world, but it’s just a black hole of like attraction here.
So how low do you have to go? Before you’re opening that door to people who have no idea about Mexico and who probably actually don’t know, they need to know about Mexico. So that’s a big reason I’m here at Tamilcan, right? I’m talking to the stakeholders who need to know about Mexico from a high level.
And what’s been sort of very gratifying to me is everyone’s very keen to subscribe, but also to quickly hand me on to other people because they’re like, Oh God, you’re needed here. And that’s been very gratifying. What, what industries are you focusing on right now? So I think It’s basically anything Mexico is involved in, which is virtually everything to some extent.
Yeah. But of course, in its own niche, in its own sort of like part of the vertical, and also wherever it’s most affected by like policy and politics, right? Be it the United States and Mexico or internal policy or even like even local policy. So, For example, we’re in a massive drought right now in central Mexico.
And so there’s lots of industry that really depends on water. And so like water security is something we talk about, but then of course, there’s other sort of wonderful opportunities about like how different parts, different states are banding together to do clusters for aerospace and and car engineering and stuff like that.
So to me, it’s anywhere. politics touches sort of a global economic supply chain or conversation, we can suddenly have that. And it goes into the social as well. This week we’re publishing a piece on how Chapultepec Park, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s the biggest urban park in the Americas.
It’s about four times bigger than Central Park. And what it does is it’s a carbon sink in the middle of Mexico City, but it’s also a massive tourist attraction, covered tourism as well. And what I’m arguing here sort of. Tongue in cheek, but also relatively seriously is what happens if we harness the forces of gentrification, all those digital nomads coming from Williamsburg to Mexico City, and we harness them to make the most of this park in a very effective way, because it’s very much use it or lose it.
And there are empty parts of the park that quickly get filled up with homelessness with drug abuse. People stop wanting to go there. And then suddenly it’s a fire hazard because no one’s there. No one’s keeping an eye on it. So yeah, What if you filled it up with American tourists and stuff like that?
What’s your, what’s your vision or the dream for the publication? We got a bit big entrepreneur community that watches this. A lot of business leaders, a lot of executives. What’s the dream for the publication? So for me, it’s essential to get into. Yeah. Every stakeholder’s inbox as soon as possible, right?
This is an urgent and important conversation to be had. Mexico, U. S., Mexico and its role in the world. Yeah. It’s inevitable. I mean, people don’t realize this. Mexico is the United States largest trading partner. It’s overtaken China. It’s essential for the United States. So I need to get into the relevant inboxes.
I know it’s a niche as well, right? Yeah. I’m not, I don’t think we’re CNN, but what’s important to me is the right people need to get this information as soon as possible. And what type of content will they expect? I know it’s of course covering Mexico, but what I mean by that is like, is it, is it all articles?
Is there audio? Is there like, just give us a feel for the, the actual content. So we’ve really honed in on sort of like deep dives, medium sized text for for the for, for your inbox. We’re also a consultancy. So I’ve done a bit of consulting with you know, United States organizations. What we’ve done, the reason I’m, I’m, I’ve got semiconductors in the mind is because one such American global organization sort of hired us on to produce and translate the intricacies of the semiconductor industry because they have this wonderful consultant who was a very technical person who really understood the ins and outs, incomprehensible to the lay people like me.
So how do you explain that in a way that’s urgent and clear to a massive audience that needs to know about it? And that’s sort of what we do in the consultancy. We sort of make very difficult and complex things simple for you. And we’ll be branching out into into into podcasting as soon as we’ve got as good as this, man, you need to, you need to get into the podcasting side of things too.
I’m in competition. It’s clearly very, no, no, there’s no competition. We’re, we’re friendly here. We’ve launched over 150 shows and we love, we love making shows. We’re doing one right now, actually in the Ukraine business network in Ukraine. So no, there’s a whole like, We want to help people with missions, get their mission out there.
That’s what we’re about here. So it’s a, that’s the point Alex, no competition. Everybody, everybody watching this already knows that, but Alex is newer to the platform. It’s okay. So. What has been, I like to always get at least one of these kind of pay it forward questions, we’re fortunate enough to be at the Milken conference this year, this is your first year so I have to ask the question, what’s been one of your favorite parts about attending the conference so far?
So to me, I mean, it could be a panel, it could be a speech, it could be anything, what has been one of your favorite parts? I want to, I want to pay it forward, but again, it sort of brings me back to my core mission, which is for decades, we heard it’s the end of history and a, and a conference like this full of financial folks, full of VCs, private equity, what you usually would have heard back in the day.
And I’m talking about all the panels and conversations I’ve had here. It would have been, well, let’s just chuck everything, all the money into the algorithm and just churn out like the facts, right? Like, because numbers talk, this is just basically a maths problem we need to solve the world. And we’re seeing the re vindication of history, so to speak, and we’re seeing the return of conversations about policy, which is how are we actually going to start I don’t know, like, questioning the very foundations of the things we work our entire economic systems on.
And so you’ve got people like Javier Millet, the Libertarian President of Argentina, making his case. Amazing. But then you’ve got people further on the left. I wouldn’t say there’s any Bernie Sanders types here, but that’s not their scene. You are, it might have been at the Pana, who knows, I don’t know. But you’ve got some Bidenistas, we’ll call them, who are in the government or support his government and they’re very pro government intervention for green policies to bring to, to reshore industry back to the United States and Mexico.
And to me, it’s a conversation about how politics is important. Affecting the entire economy and the way people invest and the way people think about that capital. Amazing. Well, Alex, I have to say it has been great having you on the show today. I’m excited to, to follow and they, I, I want Mexico political economists in my inbox, and I know many of my viewers will want that as well.
What, how, how do they get it? So the best way to do it is. www.mxpmexicopoliticalcomm.org. www.mxp.org. Fantastic. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put all of the links in the in the show notes. You can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with us and you haven’t hit Subscribe button yet.
This is your invitation. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new thought leaders and new info. So hit that subscribe button because we got many more episodes coming up for you and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Alex, again, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you so much, Adam.
