Mexico Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco homicide rate decline, Digi Mart USA News (Madrid, Spain): Roberto Velasco, head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE), acknowledged that the trade relationship with the United States is “extremely complex and diversified.” He made the remarks during his participation in the Santander 2026 International Banking Conference in Madrid, held ahead of the Ibero-American Summit.
Velasco said Mexico’s homicide rate has fallen 52% in only two years. “There is no other country in the region, nor, as far as I know, in the world, that has achieved a decline like this in this period of time,” he said.
Velasco noted that Mexico’s integration with North America sets it apart from other Latin American countries, placing it in an economic cycle very different from the rest of the region. He said Mexico, together with Canada, feels most of the transformation underway in geopolitics and the global economy, because the United States is the driver.
“This is the most important commercial relationship in the history of humanity. No other pair of countries has a trade exchange as large as Mexico and the United States.
So, obviously, it is an extremely complex and diversified relationship,” he said. “We don’t just exchange final products.
We produce things together.”
He added that the two nations have supply chains integrated across nearly every sector of the economy and also exchange services. “Therefore, it is an extremely, extremely complex economic relationship,” Velasco stressed.
Highlighting the USMCA (T-MEC), Velasco said the goal is to reduce the time and procedures needed to grant permits for foreign direct investment, along with a very ambitious infrastructure plan and a security plan.
Within the framework of the Ibero-American Summit, Velasco also took part in a dialogue with Associate and Consultative Observers. He said observers are a strategic asset for addressing shared priorities.
“Mexico proposes an agenda with the observers centered on shared priorities, projects of verifiable impact and greater interregional coordination.”
“We reiterate our willingness to work jointly toward a more open, dynamic Ibero-American Conference capable of responding to common challenges,” Velasco said.
In Madrid, Velasco also met with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, with whom he discussed the “excellent stage” in relations between Mexico and Brazil, driven by the closeness between President Sheinbaum and President Lula.
