Unlike Germany, Japan, China and to some extent the United States, Mexico’s economy is not built on manufacturing or the creation of high technology. While the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has moved thousands of jobs from the United States to Mexico and visible in auto and appliance manufacture, the bulk of jobs in Mexico are minimum wage jobs in service like waiters and maids in tourism. Its most important export earnings are from the production of petroleum. The crushing collapse of oil prices felt in Canada and states like the Dakotas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas is many times as severe for Mexico. Mexico depends on grains, poultry and cattle imports as key food sources for its young population and it must have export earnings to make these purchases.

The drop in the price of oil may reach 20 dollars a barrel and will fuel increased immigration to the United States and enhance the power of the Drug Cartels as earnings from oil fade!