The Mexican government said that Brexit could potentially delay its planned update of the Global Agreement with the EU, although the upper chamber insisted that it wanted to have the deal finalized by the end of the current presidential term in 2018. The chamber has reaffirmed that while from Mexico’s point of view things have not changed, still if the United Kingdom indeed triggers Article 50, “the country should approach the negotiations aware that the bloc will not have the economic weight it once did”.
Mexico City also said that a draft treaty is ready, though both sides are unlikely to start working on a commercial agreement this year. “Mexican companies will not be able to make decisions about their place in the country until at least 2017,” warned the Senate. The Mexican government also added that “the promise to double British exports over four years remains in doubt, as it is uncertain whether the UK will retain its status at Mexico’s sixth most important partner after it leaves”. The document published by the Gilberto Bosques Centre of International Studies, which analyzed the repercussions of the Brexit referendum, insists that “the key conclusion” is that “the benefits of globalization reach all citizens and do not just stagnate with the elites and the cities”. The paper also concluded that there was no coincidence that there was a connection between how different regions of the UK voted.
Mexico was the first Latin American country to sign a partnership agreement with the EU. The “EU-Mexico Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement”, finalized in 1997, entered into force in 2000 and established a free trade area (FTA) between the two parties. The EU is Mexico’s second biggest export market after the USA, and Mexico’s third largest source of imports after the United States and China.
