While the United States reported a drop in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 0.9 percent for the second quarter of the year, the Mexican economy grew 1 percent in the same periodbreaking the ‘curse’ that said that if the neighbor to the north was doing poorly, Mexico was doing worse.
The trend, according to different experts, was that if the United States got a ‘cold’ or ‘flu’, gave Mexico ‘pneumonia’this in reference to the fact that if the country governed by Biden was going through a bad time in its economy, in Mexico the problems were bigger.
This Friday the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated that Mexico had economic growth for two consecutive quarterswhile the economy of other countries (such as the United States) it has contracted in the same period, to the extent that some specialists already consider the situation as a technical recession.
As if that were not enough, the inflation rate in Mexico is lower than that of the United States, although both are high, which is why some specialists consider that the administration of Lopez Obrador put an end to the curse of the Mexican economy compared to the American.
Fear of a recession in the Mexican economy still lurks
Other not so optimistic specialists stress that the possibility of a recession in the Mexican economy is still possiblealthough not immediately.
Moody’s Analytics recently reported that the scenario for the Mexican economy does not look good for the second half of 2023, since the country will face different problems that could lead to a recession at the end of that year.
The analysis firm developed a scenario in which it indicated that Mexico will face “the persistence of supply shocks in the global economy, high commodity pricesand weakening of domestic demand due to the need for a greater monetary restriction to bring down high inflation”.
With the above, it is estimated that Mexico’s economy shrinks up to 3.4 percent between the second and fourth quarters of 2023, a drop that would be a ‘pneumonia’ compared to the possible drop of 2.1 percent for the United States forecast in that same period.
How has Mexico’s economy been sustained if its main trading partner is the United States?
According to Enrique Quintana, general editorial director of The financialMexico “It is subject to what happens in the United States”.
In his column published in The financial the July 18Enrique Quintana pointed out that for Mexico it is very important that the people of the United States have not (yet) reduced their consumption significantly.
The US retail sales figure reported growth of 1 percent for June, which is a good indicator for the Mexican economy, since if the period in which the US economy slows down is short Mexico’s exports and economic activity will not be affected.
“If you combine a minor brake on exports together with a persistent dynamism in consumption, what you have then is a scenario in which a recession is not taking shape, but rather a slowdown in economic activity,” said Enrique Quintana.