Hacienda Hills

Mexico's economic history has been characterized since the colonial era by resource extraction, agriculture, and a relatively underdeveloped industrial sector. Economic elites in the colonial period were predominantly Spanish born, active as transatlantic merchants and silver mine owners and diversifying their investments with the landed estates. The largest sector of the population was indigenous subsistence farmers, who lived mainly in the center and south. New Spain was envisioned by the Spanish crown as a supplier of wealth to Iberia, which huge silver mines accomplished. A colonial economy to supply foodstuffs and products from ranching as well as a domestic textile industry meant that the economy supplied much of its own needs. Crown economic policy rattled American-born elites’ loyalty to Spain when in 1804 it instituted a policy to make mortgage holders pay immediately the principal on their loans, threatening the economic position of cash-strapped land owners. Independence in Mexico in 1821 was economically difficult for the country, with the loss of its supply of mercury from Spain in silver mines.Most of the patterns of wealth in the colonial era continued into the first half of the nineteenth century, with agriculture being the main economic activity with the labor of indigenous and mixed-race peasants. The mid-nineteenth-century Liberal Reforma attempted to decrease the economic power of the Roman Catholic Church and to modernize and industrialize the Mexican economy. Following civil war and a foreign intervention, the late nineteenth century found political stability and economic prosperity during the presidential regime of General Porfirio Díaz . Mexico was opened to foreign investment and, to a lesser extent, foreign workers. Foreign capital built a railway network, one of the keys for transforming the Mexican economy, by linking regions of Mexico and major cities and ports. As the construction of the railway bridge over a deep canyon at Metlac demonstrates, Mexico's topography was a barrier to economic development. The mining industry revived in the north of Mexico and the petroleum industry developed in the north Gulf Coast states with foreign capital. Regional civil wars broke out in 1910 and lasted until 1920, known generally as the Mexican Revolution. Following the military phase of the Revolution, Mexican regimes attempted to transform a largely rural and backward country … into a middle-sized industrial power. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 gave the Mexican government the power to expropriate property, which allowed for the distribution of land to peasants, but also the Mexican oil expropriation in 1938. Mexico benefited economically from its participation in World War II and the post-war years experienced what has been called the Mexican Miracle . This growth was fueled by import substitution industrialization. The Mexican economy experienced the limits of ISI and economic nationalism and Mexico sought a new model for economic growth. Huge oil reserves were discovered in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 1970s and Mexico borrowed heavily from foreign banks with loans denominated in U.S. dollars. When the price of oil dropped in the 1980s, Mexico experienced a severe financial crisis. Under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari Mexico campaigned to join the North American Free Trade Agreement with the expanded treaty going into effect in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada on January 1, 1994. Mexico implemented neoliberal economic policies and changed significant articles of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 to ensure private property rights against future nationalization. In the twenty-first century, Mexico has strengthened its trade ties with China, but Chinese investment projects in Mexico have hit roadblocks in 2014–15. Mexico's continued dependence on oil revenues has had a deleterious impact when oil prices drop, as is happening 2014–15.
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