Monterrey, Mexico – In April, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum introduced the nation’s aerospace business may see sustained annual development of as a lot as 15 % over the subsequent 4 years, and attributed the sector’s growth to a strong native manufacturing workforce, growing exports, and a powerful presence of international firms.
However with the evaluation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement (USMCA) developing – the free-trade treaty between the three nations that helped Mexico’s aerospace sector to develop and flourish – the business’s future is now not sure.
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Stakeholders warn that guaranteeing funding stability and strengthening labour requirements are important to defending the sector’s North American provide chain.
Mexico is striving to develop into one of many prime 10 nations in aerospace manufacturing worth, a aim outlined in Plan Mexico, the nation’s strategic initiative to boost world competitiveness in key sectors.
Because the sixth-largest provider of aerospace components to the US, the business has benefited considerably from the USMCA, which fostered regional provide chain integration, mentioned Monica Lugo, director of institutional relations on the consulting agency PRODENSA.
Nevertheless, the mixing isn’t any assure of enterprise persevering with to develop because the nation is at an “unprecedented second” with US President Donald Trump and his wide-ranging tariff policies.
Lugo, a former USMCA negotiator, mentioned that current tariffs on supplies like steel and aluminium — vital to the aerospace sector— have eroded belief within the US as a dependable companion. She predicts that if present situations proceed, the sector dangers dropping capital, investments and jobs.
“Having this nice uncertainty – someday it’s on, the subsequent it’s off, who is aware of tomorrow – and based mostly on no particular standards, however moderately on the president’s temper, creates chaos and severely damages the nation and the financial system,” she mentioned.
On December 4, Trump urged the US may let the USMCA expire subsequent yr, or negotiate a brand new deal. This follows feedback by US Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer to US information outlet Politico that the administration is contemplating separate offers with Canada and Mexico.
A booming aerospace sector
The Mexican aerospace market is valued at $11.2bn, and is predicted to greater than double to $22.7bn by 2029, Sheinbaum mentioned, citing information from the Mexican Aerospace Trade Federation (FEMIA). House to world firms like Bombardier, Safran, Airbus, and Honeywell, Mexico has established itself as a key participant within the world aerospace market and is now the world’s twelfth-largest exporter of aerospace parts.
Marco Antonio Del Prete, secretary of sustainable growth in Queretaro, attributes this success partially to heavy funding in schooling and coaching. In 2005, the Queretaro authorities promised Canada’s Bombardier that it will put money into schooling and arrange the Aeronautical College, which now gives programmes starting from technical diplomas to grasp’s levels in aerospace manufacturing and engineering.
“Since Bombardier’s arrival, an academic and coaching system was created that enables us to develop expertise in a really environment friendly approach, let’s say, quick observe,” Del Prete instructed Al Jazeera.
Bombardier has served as an anchor, propelling Queretaro’s rise as a high-skilled manufacturing hub for components and parts.
Whereas the Bombardier plant in Queretaro initially centered on wiring harnesses, it has developed to concentrate on complicated aerostructures, together with the rear fuselage for the World 7500, Bombardier’s ultra-long-range enterprise jet, and key parts for the Challenger 3500, the mid-sized enterprise jet.
Marco Antonio Carrillo, a analysis professor on the Autonomous College of Queretaro (UAQ), identified that the world’s vast instructional choices have cultivated a robust workforce, which has gained vital consideration from aeroplane makers, primarily from the US, Canada and France.
“This growth [of Queretaro] has been, in the event you have a look at it when it comes to time, really explosive,” Carrillo mentioned.
Mexico additionally goals to affix France and the US because the third nation able to totally assembling an engine for Safran.
However the Worldwide Affiliation of Machinists and Aerospace Staff (IAM) Union, which represents greater than 600,000 employees in Canada and the US, is fearful that progress may result in extra superior manufacturing and meeting work to ultimately shift to Mexico, given the native funding in aeronautical universities and coaching.
“Proper now they’re [Mexican workers] doing extra entry-level kind issues, however our concern is that in a while, bigger items of the aerospace operation will go to Mexico,” Peter Greenberg, the IAM’s worldwide affairs director, instructed Al Jazeera.
Excessive-skilled, low-cost workforce
Of the three nations within the USMCA settlement, Mexico’s largest attraction has been its low-cost manufacturing.
Edgar Buendia and Mario Duran Bustamante, economics professors on the Rosario Castellanos Nationwide College, cite Mexico’s low labour prices and geographical proximity to the US because the nation’s key benefits. That is partly why the US has intensified strain on the Mexican authorities, together with in the course of the preliminary USMCA negotiations in 2017, to boost wages to stage the enjoying subject and cut back unfair competitors.
“Most US firms have incentives to maneuver their manufacturing right here in Mexico, given the [low] wages and the geographic location. So, to forestall that from occurring, the USA is pressuring Mexico to boost labour requirements, guarantee freedom of affiliation, and enhance working situations,” Buendia instructed Al Jazeera, issues that can profit Mexican employees whilst employer-dominated labour teams fear that they could lose their benefit.
The IAM initially opposed the USMCA’s predecessor, NAFTA. Greenberg mentioned that whereas they acknowledge USMCA will proceed, US and Canadian employees “would in all probability be completely pleased” if the settlement ended because the NAFTA deal had led to vegetation being shuttered and employees being laid off as jobs moved from the US and Canada to low-cost Mexico.
“There’s a want for stronger incentives to maintain work in the USA and Canada. We wish to see the wages in Mexico go up in order that it doesn’t develop into mechanically a spot the place firms go to as a result of they know they may have decrease wages and employees who shouldn’t have any bargaining energy or robust items,” Greenberg added.
Underneath Sheinbaum’s Morena social gathering, Mexico has raised the minimal wage from 88 pesos ($4.82) in 2018 to 278.8 pesos ($15.30) in 2025, with the speed in municipalities bordering the US reaching 419.88 pesos ($23). On December 4, Sheinbaum introduced a 13 % rise within the minimal wage — and 5 % for the border zone— set to start in January 2026.
Regardless of these will increase and the competitiveness of wages within the aerospace sector, researchers agree {that a} vital wage hole persists between Mexican employees and their US and Canadian counterparts.
“The wage hole is unquestionably abysmal,” mentioned Javier Salinas, a scholar on the UAQ Labor Heart, specialising in labour relations within the aerospace business. “The [aerospace] business common is between 402 [Mexican pesos] and 606, with the very best every day wage being 815. [But] 815, transformed to US {dollars}, is lower than $40 for a single workday.”
Against this, Salinas estimates {that a} employee within the US earns a mean of about 5,500 pesos, or $300, per day.
‘Safety unions’
The USMCA required Mexico to finish “safety unions”, a longstanding follow the place firms signal agreements with corrupt union leaders — generally known as “sindicatos charros” — with out the employees’ information. This method has been used to forestall genuine union organising, as these sindicatos usually serve the pursuits of the corporate and authorities authorities moderately than the employees.
Salinas argues that regardless of the 2019 labour reform, it stays troublesome for impartial unions to emerge. In the meantime, “safety unions” proceed to maintain wages low to keep up competitiveness.
“However think about, a competitiveness based mostly on precarious or impoverished working situations. I don’t suppose that’s the way in which ahead,” Salinas mentioned.
Even with new labour courts and legal guidelines mandating collective bargaining, organising in Mexico stays harmful. Staff making an attempt to create impartial unions ceaselessly face firing, threats, or being blacklisted by firms.
Humberto Huitron, a lawyer specialising in collective labour legislation and commerce unionism, explains that Mexican employees, together with within the aerospace sector, usually lack efficient illustration. “There’s discrimination throughout hiring or recruitment. They don’t rent employees who’re dismissed for union activism,” he mentioned.
Past demanding that Mexico implement its labour reform, the IAM is looking for the growth and strengthening of the Fast Response Mechanism (RRM), which permits the US to take motion towards factories in the event that they fail to uphold freedom of affiliation and collective bargaining rights.
Whereas not within the aerospace sector, the US lately invoked the RRM towards a wine producer in Queretaro. Earlier such actions within the state had been restricted to the automotive sector.
“Nobody is aware of precisely what’s going on in the entire factories in Mexico,” Greenberg mentioned.
In line with FEMIA, there are 386 aerospace firms working in 19 states. These embody 370 specialised vegetation that generate 50,000 direct jobs and 190,000 oblique jobs.
Del Prete, nevertheless, assured Al Jazeera that, in Queretaro, unions are impartial and “they’ve their very own organisation.”
Salinas factors out that in Queretaro, there has not been a strike in many years, including, “Think about the management of the workforce: 29, 30 years and not using a single strike within the non-public sector.”
