Growing Together: Cross-Border Investments Lay the Foundation for Shared Regional Prosperity

The current state of economic integration between the United States and Mexico is such that our growth, competitiveness, and prosperity is deeply linked. To build up the highly competitive and tightly integrated North American production platform that now exists, U.S. and Mexican companies have made huge investments in each other’s country. The total stock of U.S. and Mexican foreign direct investment in each other has risen more than six-fold since 1993 and now totals $108 billion dollars. In addition to foreign direct investments, U.S. and Mexican investors hold even larger portfolio investments—investments in a variety of financial instruments, including debt and equity, that are purely financial and do not confer significant management rights.

This essay analyzes the current state of U.S.-Mexico foreign direct investment and portfolio investment. Read the essay here.

This essay is part of our project Growing Together: Economic Ties between the United States and Mexico, which explores the bilateral relationship in detail to understand its nature and its impact on the United States. Throughout the fall of 2016, the Mexico Institute will release the findings of our research on our website and social media, using the hashtag #USMXEcon.