Yearly Archives: 2021

Luis Rubio At the end of the Cold War, Fukuyama wrote an article entitled “The End of History” in which he postulated that the world had arrived at a consensus about the way forward. Twenty years later, with wars in the Middle East in vogue, Jennifer Welsh published “The Return of History,” suggesting that war […]

Luis Rubio The way the Morena-party government functions, especially with President López Obrador’s early-morning press conferences, reminds me of an old Russian joke. It was about a peasant farmer whose neighbor saves enough to purchase a goat. The peasant asks God to put right this injustice and God answers, asking the peasant what he wants […]

Luis Rubio For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton’s Third Law of Motion is similarly applicable to physics and politics. Governments define their objectives and means to achieve them and the population has to deal with the consequences: nothing and no one can avoid this elemental principle. The […]

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/expert-take-usmca-rules-origin-disputes  WILSON CENTER MEXICO INSTITUTE By Christopher Wilson, Francisco de Rosenzweig & Luis Rubio on September 23, 2021 The USMCA Rule of Origin for automotive products not only sets a high threshold of regional content to qualify for tariff-free treatment (75 percent, up from 62.5 percent in NAFTA) it also adds requirements specific to steel, aluminum, and labor value content. Auto […]

Luis Rubio Alexander Pope, a XIX-century English poet, penned the phrase “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Mexico’s relation with the United States is, was and will be complex and variegated as long as Mexicans do not resolve the fundamental problems of their own development, which would presumably raise their standard of living, […]

Luis Rubio When he was a comedian on television in Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, garbed in a prison inmate’s uniform,  criticized the corruption of the politicians, accusing them of being atheists and not being able to imagine a better life than that deriving from the reigning corruption. Three years later, as President of Guatemala, Morales’s son […]

Luis Rubio In New Zealand, the Maoris engage in a ritual at the start of rugby games called “haka,” which consists of a series of grimaces, exaggerated gestures and movements –ranging from sticking out the tongue to jumping and making all kinds of menacing noises- with the object of scaring their opponents. Their competitors are […]

Mexico Today Luis Rubio  It has been nearly three years since Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president of Mexico. His administration has clarity of purpose, but no other aim than to impose it dogmatically, relentlessly, and unsparingly. Circumstances are changing, but the president does not waver, oblivious to the consequences. Wasn’t that what the López Obrador […]

Development Luis Rubio The objective, as the president tells Mexicans once and again, is regime change. However, to judge by his actions, his true mission is that of concentrating power and eliminating any source of opposition or counterweight. Perhaps this would be a new regime as the president promised, but that is certainly not the […]

Luis Rubio The key to development lies in the joint action of millions of individuals exercising their freedom and making their own decisions, within the framework of rules established by the State. When those rules are coherent and, above all, derive from the recognition of human nature as it is and not how some politician […]