Mexican Power Drives the U.S. Economy—and Its Democracy
Also in this edition: Tamales and atole uphold Mexico’s sovereignty. Mining companies and cartels. Are we ready for China 2.0? Our colleague Javier.
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The World’s Eighth-Largest Economy
Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the United States have built an economy that generates more wealth than Brazil, Canada, or even Mexico itself. Yet that economy could be much larger if the United States and Mexico had not pursued policies that have limited this sector’s contributions over the past three decades, according to new research from UCLA’s North American Integration and Development Center (NAID).
Political leaders in Mexico often refer to migrants in the United States as “heroes” who send remittances back home. In the first three months of this year, remittances reached a record high for a first quarter since 1995.
However, according to Professor Raúl Hinojosa Ojeda, author of the new report, remittances are only one part of the enormous economic power of the Mexican American community together with immigrants born in Mexico. Combined, they would constitute the eighth-largest economy in the world, totaling more than $2.27 trillion in 2024. He added that this population generates 54 percent of all Latino economic output in the United States and 11 percent of the overall U.S. economy.
Mexican immigrants alone—born in Mexico, both documented and undocumented—generated $792 billion in economic activity, while the U.S.-born population of Mexican descent generated $1.311 trillion in 2023. The GDP of the entire Latino population in the United States reached $4.2 trillion, equivalent to the economy of Germany.
For Hinojosa, who founded NAID at UCLA 30 years ago, one major conclusion of his research is the scale of the opportunities lost by failing to implement a better-managed economic integration process between the two countries over the last three decades, a problem worsened by Donald Trump’s policies. The original free trade agreement failed to include pathways for documented migration and coordinated investment in human resources and infrastructure in both countries, representing a massive missed opportunity. Hinojosa projects that if such a comprehensive binational effort had been undertaken since the 1990s, Mexico’s GDP would now be twice its current size.
By far the largest investors in Mexico are its immigrants living outside of their own country, who send more than $60 billion home every year. In the past, efforts were made to channel some of these funds into infrastructure projects and the revitalization of hometown communities through programs such as the well-known “3x1” initiative. Hinojosa proposes a mechanism in which 10 percent of all remittances would be placed into savings programs such as government bonds (like the CETES), noting that countries including China and India have successfully used similar strategies to generate public investment funds.
At the same time, immigrants throughout the history of both countries have served not only as economic engines but also as promoters of social change and as democratizing forces. The revival of May Day in the United States was thanks to immigrant workers, who also participated in the historic events in Chicago and other parts of the country commemorated worldwide on that date 140 years ago.
Moreover, immigrants have long been at the forefront of struggles for labor rights, education, healthcare, and housing in the United States. They also nourish U.S. culture as well as the cultures of their countries of origin—something heard in music, seen in film and theater, danced in celebrations, and tasted in the food traditions that flourish in the U.S. and ripple back to their homelands.
The Quote:
“They killed Miroslava for being a loud mouth. Let them kill us all, if that is the death sentence for reporting on this hell. No to silence.”
—Javier Valdez, in a post on X after the murder of Miroslava Breach, La Jornada correspondent in Chihuahua, on March 23, 2017.
In Case You Missed It
◻️ Tamales and Atole Sustain Mexico’s Sovereignty. Atole and tamales are among the oldest culinary traditions of the peoples who incorporated corn into their diets, and they are rooted in one of humanity’s most remarkable food technologies: nixtamalization, writes Víctor M. Toledo. It is estimated that Mexico has nearly 500 varieties of tamales. The country has enough land and labor to produce most of what households consume, and even enough to export. But the support needed to achieve that goal remains largely absent, adds Iván Restrepo.
◻️ Mining Companies and Cartels. Canadian company Orla Mining announced the replacement of the general manager of the Camino Rojo mine in Zacatecas after accusations that the company used alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel to threaten workers. This marked the first victory for the leader of The National Miners Union, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, who accused Americas Gold and Silver in Sinaloa, Pan American Silver in Zacatecas, and Torex Gold in Guerrero of using cartels against unionized workers. “If the allegations are proven, the state must act as demanded by the Miners Union by revoking the concessions of the companies involved and stripping company-backed unions of their registration,” La Jornada wrote in an editorial.
◻️ Shifts in Migration Flows in Latin America. Changes in U.S. immigration policy initiated in January 2025 contributed to an increase in reverse migration, with migrant flows shifting away from the north and toward the south. The region is now home to 78.7 million migrants, both documented and undocumented, according to the International Organization for Migration.
◻️ Cuba Treated 23,000 Child Victims of Chernobyl. For decades, Cuba was the only country to answer Ukraine’s call to care for victims of the nuclear reactor disaster. Now, 40 years after the tragedy, Kyiv accuses Moscow of “nuclear terrorism.”
◻️ Are We Ready for China 2.0? “Mexico, in its relationship with Canada and the United States, should explicitly examine and confront the socioeconomic challenges posed by China 2.0,” argues Enrique Dussel Peters. “A purely protectionist approach aimed at eliminating the Chinese presence is neither realistic nor strategic.” Recent fiscal measures in Mexico seek not only to replace Chinese imports but also to build a stronger domestic supply network. Over the last five years, Mexico became the leading destination for Chinese foreign direct investment transactions in Latin America and the Caribbean, although Brazil and Argentina received larger total investment amounts.
◻️ Our Colleague Javier. When Javier Valdez received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York in 2011, he warned: “I have told the story of the tragedy Mexico is living through, one that we should be ashamed of. Childhood has its DNA tattooed with bullets, rifles, and blood. And this is a way of murdering tomorrow. We are murderers of our own future.” Luis Hernández Navarro remembers him on the ninth anniversary of the still-unsolved murder of the La Jornada correspondent in Sinaloa and founder of Ríodoce.
◻️ Ninety Minutes of Freedom. Jail is a word that weighs a ton, but soccer, and the approach of the World Cup, offers a fleeting sense of the freedom that exists outside prison walls. “When you play, you forget about the bars. You feel like you’re back on the neighborhood field or any street court,” says goalkeeper José Francisco, nicknamed “Winnie,” who has been serving a prison sentence for the past 10 years and plays on the championship team of the inter-prison tournament known as the Reintegration Cup, organized by the Ministry of Public Safety.
📚 What We’re Listening To
The Museum of Popular Art: a museum that responds to the “right to culture.”
A conversation with its director in Palabras Cruzadas.
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Edited by David Brooks and Jim Cason in the United States, Tania Molina Ramírez in Mexico City, of La Jornada, and Elizabeth Coll in Tokyo, under the direction of Carmen Lira Saade and Guillermina Alvarez. More information.