Marcelo initiated the project, which was important, but it is very difficult this year to have any certainty about the future of USMCA. An industrialist mentioned to this editorial that it is crucial that in the negotiation with Mexico, the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent gains weight, as he would be the one most in favor of the trilateral bloc. In political terms, echoes of Sheinbaum's participation in Cancún also reached Monterrey: just like the bankers, the industrialists believe that the president has a correct orientation but lacks the ability to control the movement that has elevated her as a full-power leader. Little by little, the president is realizing that not everything in the neoliberal era was bad; she wants to return to contracts with private companies in Pemex, defends USMCA, and now, with this law, returns to the PPP scheme that Enrique Peña Nieto proposed. An industry captain who heard the president in Monterrey told this editorial that her implicit message is very similar to that of the Banking Convention in Cancún: it is necessary to boost investment for the economy to grow again. The problem with the norm, according to Caintra NL, is that the terms 'contract' and 'bidding' it proposes are, in principle, too discretionary, opaque, and have rather obscure legal certainty. Another detail: while Altagracia Gómez is a valued interlocutor for the Group of 10, the Secretary of Communications and Transport, Jesús Esteva, does not generate much confidence due to his close ties with large construction companies favored in the previous six-year term, such as Mota-Engil. Among the comments recorded from the main business leaders, support for Marcelo Ebrard, who accompanied the president, remains firm, but there is also a firm conviction that before the US midterm elections, President Donald Trump will not want to sign the new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Infrastructure Law presented by Claudia Sheinbaum this Wednesday at the Caintra NL assembly was generally well-received by the industrialists of the country's main business chamber.
