THE NORTH AMERICAN — 77 · MORNING AFFAIRS BRIEF
Trade, energy, water & AI — your weekly brief on North America's most essential affairs.
-Longview Spanish Version Below-
WEEKLY AFFAIRS
1. USMCA — The Review Before the Review Washington and Mexico City concluded the first bilateral round tied to the USMCA Joint Review on May 29, with automotive rules of origin, steel and aluminum, and economic security at the center. Further rounds are scheduled June 16–17 in Washington and the week of July 20 in Mexico City. The formal six-year review is due by July 1 under Article 34.7. The real choice is not renewal or collapse — it is certainty, or annual uncertainty.
2. Mexico Holds — But the Tariff Clock Keeps Ticking US imports from Mexico remain exposed to a temporary 10% Section 122 tariff on non-USMCA goods — a measure now legally contested after the Court of International Trade found the proclamation unlawful in May, with relief limited to specific plaintiffs. Mexico’s private sector is adapting faster than policy: roughly 85% of exports now qualify for preferential USMCA treatment. The market is moving. The paperwork is struggling to keep up.
3. Canada–US Metals Pressure Becomes a Continental Problem The US is applying heavy Section 232 pressure on steel, aluminum, and copper, with Canadian and Mexican producers eligible to seek reductions from 50% to 25% only if they commit to US production investment. Copper’s inclusion extends the metals fight into mining, electrical equipment, construction, grid infrastructure, and the AI build-out itself. North America is trying to reindustrialize with one hand while taxing its own inputs with the other.
4. Nearshoring Matures — Capital Is Not the Only Constraint Mexico climbed to 19th in Kearney’s 2026 FDI Confidence Index. Mexico reported a record $23.591B in FDI in Q1 2026 — up 10.4% over Q1 2025 — and closed 2025 with $40.871B in total investment. The constraint is no longer only capital. It is energy, water, permits, customs execution, infrastructure, talent, and rule-of-law certainty.
5. The AI Build-Out Is a Continental Event The world’s top 9 cloud providers are expected to spend $830B in 2026 capex — up 79% year-over-year. Microsoft leads at $190B, Google at $180–190B, Meta at $125–145B, and AWS above $230B. This is not only a technology cycle. It is an energy, water, land, permitting, and transmission cycle.
6. A Fiber Backbone Crosses the Gulf C3ntro Telecom and Telconet announced CSN-2 on May 14 — a subsea and terrestrial fiber network linking Veracruz to Florida and Texas, integrated into the TIKVA corridor from Querétaro to Phoenix. CSN-2 is designed to connect AI, cloud, and hyperscale data center ecosystems across Phoenix, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, and Querétaro. Mexico is becoming a digital node — not only a manufacturing platform.
7. Water Is the Crisis No One Is Negotiating Lake Mead reported an end-of-April elevation of 1,056.32 feet under continued Colorado River constraints. Mexico City is losing an estimated 35–40% of its water supply through infrastructure leaks — roughly equal to all water imported from the Cutzamala System. US data center cooling water demand could reach 145–275 billion liters per year by 2028. The AI boom and the water crisis are heading toward the same geography.
8. Immigration Is Reshaping the Labor Map US Border Patrol encounters at the US–Mexico border fell to 237,538 in fiscal 2025 — the lowest annual level since 1970. Brookings estimates US net migration was likely negative in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century, ranging from -295,000 to -10,000. Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute project US manufacturing may need 3.8 million workers by 2033, with 1.9 million jobs at risk of going unfilled. The workers exist in North America. The institutional channels connecting them are closing, not opening.
9. Fentanyl — Enforcement Rises, the Crisis Continues The White House’s 2026 counterterrorism strategy places cartel operations at the center of US hemispheric security policy, treating fentanyl and its precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction. The Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG remain principal wholesale suppliers across North America, with operations expanding into Canada. The security question is now continental — supply chains, ports, banks, chemicals, logistics, and public health are part of the same battlefield.
KEY EVENTS
USMCA Bilateral Rounds — Mexico City and Washington First US–Mexico round concluded May 29 in Mexico City. Next rounds: June 16–17 in Washington, week of July 20 in Mexico City.
USMCA Six-Year Joint Review — Due July 1, 2026 Under Article 34.7, all three parties must complete the review by the sixth anniversary of entry into force. Extension through a new 16-year term requires confirmation by all parties.
Gordie Howe International Bridge — Opening 2026 The Windsor–Detroit crossing — the most significant US–Canada border infrastructure in a generation — remains on track for a 2026 opening.
Isthmus of Tehuantepec Corridor — Moving Toward Full Scale Mexico’s Interoceanic Corridor is operating portions of its rail system with full-scale completion targeted for 2026 — a direct alternative to the Panama Canal for continental cargo.
NUMBERS
$976.1B — Total US–Mexico goods and services trade in 2025. Mexico is the #1 US trading partner.
$872.8B — Total US–Mexico goods trade in 2025.
~85% — Approximate share of Mexican exports qualifying for preferential USMCA treatment.
$23.591B — Mexico’s FDI in Q1 2026 — a record first quarter, up 10.4% over Q1 2025.
$40.871B — Mexico’s full-year 2025 FDI.
$830B — Projected 2026 capex for the top 9 global cloud providers — up 79% year-over-year.
145–275B liters — Potential annual US data center cooling water consumption by 2028.
$149.5B — North American transborder freight in March 2026, up 3.2% year-over-year.
$84.0B — US–Mexico freight in March 2026, up 8.6% year-over-year.
$98.6B — Truck freight across US–Canada and US–Mexico borders in March 2026, up 4.7% year-over-year.
1.9M — US manufacturing jobs at risk of going unfilled by 2033 if skills and applicant gaps remain unresolved.
THE LONGVIEW — by Eduardo Joffroy
The Continent Is Already Ahead of Its Governments
The version of North America that actually works does not wait for instructions. It moves almost a trillion dollars in US–Mexico trade, builds factories across Mexico, opens new digital corridors under the Gulf, and reroutes freight when political systems fall behind economic reality.
The continent has always moved ahead of the paperwork.
The formal version is being negotiated now. In Mexico City, Washington, and soon the trilateral table, trust is measured in rules of origin, steel schedules, tariff exemptions, customs compliance, regulatory compatibility, and the remaining time before USMCA’s review machinery begins again. Washington wants economic security. Mexico wants industrial relief and investment certainty. Ottawa watches both and does the math.
But the deeper issue is not only the treaty. It’s the multiple gaps within the continent that are clear to everyone — but are perhaps not politically convenient to name, let alone act on. The very notion of accepting that we need each other is something you don’t hear enough.
I see these gaps every day. I lead a US and Mexican licensed customs brokerage & logistics company, and I see firsthand what happens when each customs operation meets the real world.
Customers are not suffering from a lack of ambition. They are suffering from uncertainty, redundancies, backlogs, permit delays, infrastructure limits, compliance risk, and a legal and tax web that turns proximity into friction.
Mexico has the geography, the labor platform, the industrial base. But Mexico’s customs, trade, tax, legal, and infrastructure systems are making it too hard for large maquiladoras and national companies to operate at the speed North America now requires.
ANAM, SAT, and the Ministry of Economy should not become accidental trade barriers inside the region we are trying to integrate.
The same applies to the US and Canada. Both nations are global leading powers that together could re-align and re-design the most powerful and visionary geographical bloc in the world for the 21st century (North America). That opportunity is too consequential to lose to short-term political division. When the two largest economies in the bloc cannot align, the vacuum fills itself — and never in the continent’s favor.
This is why the USMCA review must be bigger than tariff relief. North America needs a new operating system for trade, labor, energy, technology, water, security, rule of law, customs execution, immigration, mobility, connectivity, and sustainability.
We cannot build the 21st century with 20th century logic.
The continent integrates by economics and fragments by policy at the same time. Capital goes deeper. Data corridors are being built. Freight keeps moving. Manufacturers keep adapting. But institutional friction keeps rising at every border, every port, every permit window, and every zone of legal uncertainty.
One signal almost no one is negotiating is water. The AI infrastructure boom will consume power and water at a scale North America is not prepared for — in the same geography where the Colorado River system remains under stress and Mexico City is losing up to 40% of its supply through leaks. The agricultural trade is ever more continentally interdependent but the water being exported is not being accounted for.
The next continental crisis may not arrive from a tariff schedule. It may arrive from a reservoir, a transformer, a port bottleneck, a permit office, or a missing workforce.
North America is the greatest unrealized project in the world.
Its potential is not only trade — it is shared wellbeing, security, financial inclusion, healthcare, science, knowledge, prosperity, basic resources, smart immigration, and the possibility of confronting organized crime as a continental problem instead of a bilateral blame game.
The continent does not wait for its agreements to catch up. It has always marched ahead. It is time our institutions did the same.
— Versión en Español —
El Continente Ya Va Adelante de Sus Gobiernos
La versión de América del Norte que realmente funciona no espera instrucciones. Mueve casi un billón de dólares en comercio entre México y Estados Unidos, construye nuevas capacidades industriales, abre corredores digitales bajo el Golfo y redirige la carga cuando los sistemas políticos se quedan atrás de la realidad económica.
El continente siempre ha marchado por delante del papeleo.
La versión formal se está negociando ahora. En Ciudad de México, Washington y pronto en la mesa trilateral, la confianza se mide en reglas de origen, acero, aluminio, exenciones arancelarias, cumplimiento aduanero, compatibilidad regulatoria y el tiempo que le queda al reloj del T-MEC. Washington quiere seguridad económica. México quiere alivio industrial y certidumbre para la inversión. Ottawa observa y hace sus cálculos.
Pero el tema de fondo no es solamente el tratado. Son las múltiples brechas dentro del continente que todos conocen — pero que quizás no es políticamente conveniente nombrar, y mucho menos atender. La sola idea de reconocer que nos necesitamos mutuamente es algo que se escucha demasiado poco.
Yo veo esas brechas todos los días. Dirijo una empresa con licencias de agencia aduanal en Estados Unidos y México, y veo de primera mano lo que pasa cuando cada operación aduanera se enfrenta con la realidad. Los clientes no sufren por falta de ambición. Sufren por incertidumbre, redundancias, rezagos, permisos detenidos, infraestructura limitada, riesgos de cumplimiento y una telaraña legal, fiscal y aduanera que convierte la proximidad en fricción.
México tiene la geografía, la plataforma laboral, la base industrial. Pero sus sistemas aduaneros, fiscales, legales, comerciales y de infraestructura están haciendo demasiado difícil que las grandes maquiladoras y las empresas nacionales operen a la velocidad que América del Norte necesita. ANAM, SAT y la Secretaría de Economía no deben convertirse en barreras comerciales accidentales dentro de la región que estamos tratando de integrar.
Lo mismo aplica para Estados Unidos y Canadá. Ambas naciones son potencias globales que juntas pueden realinear y diseñar el bloque geográfico más poderoso y visionario del mundo. Esa oportunidad es demasiado grande para perderla ante la división política de corto plazo. Cuando las dos economías más grandes del bloque no logran alinearse, el vacío se llena solo — y nunca a favor del continente.
Por eso la revisión del T-MEC debe ser más grande que el alivio arancelario. América del Norte necesita un nuevo sistema operativo para comercio, trabajo, energía, tecnología, agua, seguridad, estado de derecho, ejecución aduanera, inmigración, movilidad, conectividad y sustentabilidad. No podemos construir el siglo XXI con lógica fronteriza del siglo XX.
El continente se integra por la economía y se fragmenta por la política al mismo tiempo. El capital entra más profundo. Los corredores de datos se están construyendo. La carga sigue moviéndose. Los fabricantes siguen adaptándose. Pero la fricción institucional sigue creciendo en cada frontera, cada puerto, cada ventanilla de permisos y cada zona de incertidumbre legal.
Una señal que casi nadie negocia es el agua. El boom de infraestructura de IA consumirá energía y agua a una escala para la que América del Norte no está preparada — en la misma geografía donde el sistema del Río Colorado sigue bajo presión y Ciudad de México pierde hasta 40% de su suministro por fugas. La próxima crisis continental puede no venir de un arancel. Puede venir de un embalse, un transformador, un cuello de botella portuario, una ventanilla de permisos o una fuerza laboral desconectada.
América del Norte es el mayor proyecto no realizado del mundo. Su potencial no es solamente comercio — es bienestar compartido, seguridad compartida, inclusión financiera, salud, ciencia, conocimiento, prosperidad, recursos básicos, orden migratorio y la posibilidad de enfrentar al crimen organizado como un problema continental, no como un juego bilateral de culpas.
El continente no espera que sus acuerdos lo alcancen. Siempre ha marchado adelante. Es tiempo de que nuestras instituciones hagan lo mismo.