Tuesday, September 3, 2024 | 1:00 PM EDT - 1:00 PM EDT
The 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) established barrier-free trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Several Chinese private-sector companies have set up manufacturing companies in Mexico that sell to the United States, thereby hoping to work around U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made products. As Chinese companies move production lines to Mexico, the United States grows more concerned about Chinese dominance in the global market. One prominent case study is in the electric vehicle (EV) market: Chinese EV manufacturers, which originally faced high tariffs in the U.S. market, are building up their manufacturing capacity in Mexico. The growing presence of comparatively cheaper Chinese EV materials in the U.S. market could present a threat to the future of U.S. EV companies.
In this interview recorded on September 3, 2024, join Meg Rithmire as she interviews Jorge Guajardo and Michael Dunne about the U.S.-China-Mexico economic relationship and its significance to the global electric vehicle market.
Speakers
Jorge Guajardo
Ambassador Guajardo provides strategic guidance on risk, cyber security, market disruptions, barriers to market entry, government relations, and strategic communication in China, Latin America, and Europe. His tenure as Mexico’s ambassador to China, spanning six years, led negotiations for trade agreements between the two countries. As the Aspen Institute Global Cyber Security Group co-chair, Ambassador Guajardo is at the forefront of global cybersecurity discussions. Earlier in his career, Ambassador Guajardo served as consul general of Mexico in Austin, Texas, where he worked on labor, policing, and financial services at the Mexico/U.S. border. He has a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University and a masters in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Michael Dunne
Michael Dunne is the CEO of Dunne Insights, an advisory firm with expertise in global electric vehicle markets, autonomous vehicles, and battery supply chains. Mr. Dunne is also a limited partner at Assembly Ventures, a Michigan-based venture capital company. A Detroit native, he was previously the president of GM Indonesia and, before that, the managing director of JD Power operations in China. He worked in Asia for 25 years, both as an entrepreneur and as an executive in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. Mr. Dunne is the author of American Wheels, Chinese Roads: The Story of General Motors in China. He earned an MBA and MA from the University of Michigan and speaks Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian.
Moderator
Meg Rithmire
Meg Rithmire is the James E. Robison Professor in the business, government, and international economy unit of the Harvard Business School. She studies the comparative political economy of development with a focus on China and Asia. Her first book, Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism (2015), examines the role of land politics, urban governments, and local property rights regimes in the Chinese economic reforms. Her second book, Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia (2023) analyzes state-business relations in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the People’s Republic of China. A new project on business geopolitical risk and resilience, for which she is co-chairing an initiative with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, focuses on how firms can and should change their governance practices to deal with geopolitical and national security risk.
Dr. Rithmire holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and is a fellow in the NCUSCR Public Intellectuals Program.
