Word: mexicanization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Around the fringe of the dusty, sprawling Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez (pop. 625,000) rise row after row of corrugated-steel and beige brick structures bearing the logos of RCA, General Electric and GTE. Inside a Honeywell building, hundreds of women wearing red smocks hunch over an assembly line as they put together tiny electronic devices. Ten million parts a month are turned out here and then trucked across the border to U.S. plants, which ship them off to be used in Apple computers, Xerox copiers and instrument panels for the space shuttle...
...assembling the components in Mexico rather than in the U.S. just a few miles away, Honeywell saves about 50% on production costs. That kind of bargain is creating a manufacturing boom along the 2,000-mile Mexican-U.S. border and is also boosting the ailing Mexican economy. Like Detroit's automakers, who are moving an increasing amount of production to foreign countries, many other manufacturers are also building factories outside the U.S. More than 600 assembly plants have been lured to the Mexican border region to produce everything from electronic components to clothing...
...decades ago, the land around Ciudad Juárez, situated just south of El Paso, Texas, was occupied by tumbleweeds, a few head of cattle and a little cotton. But in 1965 the Mexican government decided to stimulate jobs in the northern region by relaxing its laws against foreign ownership of factories and reducing import taxes on raw materials. This has enabled U.S. companies to build so-called twin plants, one north of the border and the other south. A typical company manufactures its materials in the U.S. plant, sends them to the Mexican factory for assembly and then returns...
Sandinista leaders appeared to confirm that view. Following the latest round of discreetly private meetings between the two sides in the Mexican resort town of Manzanillo, Sergio Ramirez Mercado, a member of Nicaragua's governing junta and the Sandinista candidate for Vice President in national elections set for Nov. 4, declared, "For the first time, we're talking with the U.S. and not just listening...
...negotiating drama has been heating up since June, when Secretary of State Shultz paid a surprise visit to Managua, Nicaragua's capital, largely at the urging of Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. In discussions with Junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra, Shultz inaugurated what amounts to a fight-and-talk approach to U.S.-Nicaraguan diplomacy. After years of shunning direct negotiations with the Sandinistas, Shultz agreed to open formal channels of discussion on improving relations. But the Administration made no move to abandon its pressure tactics toward Nicaragua, notably covert support for the contras and the scheduling...