Next Friday we’ll have the timely GDP estimate for the third quarter. I think there’s already consensus that the figure may be slightly negative. That makes it hard to imagine economic growth this year exceeding half a percentage point. That’s roughly where the specialists’ average forecast stands, expecting a mild recovery next year that would take us to about one and a half percent. As you know, that’s still below the Finance Ministry’s projection.
We’ve already discussed that we are not in an economic crisis—at least not in the way we Mexicans imagine it, after the major shocks of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s (which were self-inflicted), or the external blows in this century. However, this poor performance adds to what’s already been seven rather dismal years, as we mentioned Wednesday.
What I still can’t picture is how we’ll change the trend. If you keep doing the same things, it’s only natural to expect the same results. What little has changed has actually gone in a negative direction. The destruction of the judiciary, including the amparo mechanism, can’t possibly boost confidence. Many specialists—especially in finance—insist that this isn’t an issue for foreign investment. If they’re right, we’ll remain stuck in the deterioration of recent years. If they’re wrong, things will get worse.
We’ve had another major shift: the re-nationalization of the energy sector. That’s undoubtedly negative for growth, and perhaps that’s why the government itself is now trying to reverse the laws it once championed. This is what’s happening in the electricity sector, where they’re now trying to promote what they previously banned—further eroding legal certainty. We’ll see how much they achieve, but the rest of investment depends on it. Don’t forget, we no longer have enough electricity.
As for Pemex, supply is the least of its problems—the real issue is its dire financial situation. Yesterday we learned that Mexico was the emerging market that raised the most funds this year: 41 billion dollars. It seems that money is meant to help Pemex partially restructure its debt, but we still don’t know how it plans to pay its suppliers, to whom it owes even more—though it officially acknowledges only about 20 billion dollars. As you already know, by 2026 Pemex will be costing us money: there will be no oil revenue to share.
Finally, there are some international trends working against us. One is Trump’s volatility, which—though it’s left us among the least-affected countries in tariff terms—still means much higher tariffs than before. In 2026 we’ll be in the thick of USMCA renegotiations, no matter what they call it. Another trend we don’t seem to be addressing is the transformation of the automotive industry. The speed with which the electric-vehicle market has expanded seems to have caught the carmakers in Mexico off guard. Although production has recovered to 4 million light vehicles per year, something’s going on in recent months. In fact, the industry’s growth over the first nine months of 2025 is barely 0.4 percent in units produced.
Some time ago, I mentioned that we could expect about half a point of annual growth from the second half of 2024 through 2027. For now, that’s where we are—and, considering all the above, including the shortage of public funds, it seems very likely that’s where we’ll stay. As we’ve also said, it feels like a return to the lost decade—the 1980s—when our infrastructure collapsed and informality surged. It’s not a crisis; it’s simple deterioration.