At 250, America's next chapter runs through the border

This week I watched America turn 250, and I felt the whole story in my chest at once, the boy who came from Mexico and became an American. That is the lens for everything that follows. The old trilateral order is cracking. Washington let the USMCA clock start ticking toward a bilateral future, the Arizona and Sonora governors skipped the oldest binational table we have, and in New York a socialist wing sent a message that should worry every Democrat who wants to keep the 40 million of us in the coalition. Meanwhile our region gave the world a World Cup classic at the Azteca. The through line is simple. The next chapter of American prosperity runs through the border, and the people who understand that are the ones who will build it.

First time reading? Join thousands of intellectually curious readers. Sign up here.

I called this one weeks ago. On July 1, the United States declined to renew the USMCA for another 16 years. The pact does not die. It stays in force through 2036. But Washington just traded one clean decision for a decade of annual reviews, and that changes everything for the border.

Read the signal clearly. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer chose not to rubber stamp an extension while the administration pushes bilateral tracks, one with Mexico, another eventually with Canada. Mexico City and Ottawa both rejected splitting the deal in public. They will lose that fight. The next round lands in Mexico City the week of July 20, and Canada is not even at the table. This is heading exactly where I said it would: toward two separate relationships built on Washington’s terms.

Here is the gap that worries me. Uncertainty is a tax. Mexico’s Commerce Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said it plainly: drag companies through constant review and you choke off investment. It is already happening. Major plants paused. Capital walked. Logistics money near our ports of entry went cold. Annual reviews reward the patient and punish the committed.

Here is the opportunity. Capital fleeing ambiguity hunts for certainty, and the Arizona and Mexico border corridor can offer exactly that. Tighter rules of origin and real enforcement against transshipment favor genuine North American production, not Chinese goods wearing a Mexican label. That is our lane.

My recommendation: do not wait for 2036. Use the review window to lock supply chain security, harden rules of origin, and pitch the border as the safest bet in North America. At Intermestic Partners, that is exactly the case we are making.

Introducing the border art collection

I have spent my entire career at the intersection of two nations. I have sat across from diplomats, negotiated trade agreements, managed the busiest land ports of entry in the world, and walked the same desert ground that millions of people have crossed in search of something better. The border is not an abstraction to me. It is home.

For years, the walls of my office have told that story. Now I want to share it.

This week I am launching my Border Art Collection, a curated set of works that reflect the depth, complexity, and humanity of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. These are not decorative pieces. Each one carries a history, a people, and a point of view. The collection begins with the piece I consider the most fitting for where we stand today: a striking oil portrait of José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, the man the world knows as Pancho Villa, El Centauro del Norte.

Painted in July 2023 by artist Rita Amaya, the original hangs in my office in Phoenix. Every U.S. and Mexican business leader, diplomat, and official who walks through that door sees it. No one needs it explained. Villa was a fronterizo, a man of the border, who governed and operated across two nations as if boundaries were merely suggestions. He remains the only Mexican commander in history to launch a military invasion of the United States, forcing an American military response in 1916. He is complicated, defiant, and impossible to ignore, which is exactly what the border has always been.

Professional poster prints are now available for your home, office, boardroom, or any space where the U.S.-Mexico relationship matters. Visit my website for details, and follow along as the collection grows.

Pancho Villa - El Centauro del Norte

Born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula in Durango, Mexico, Villa commanded the largest military force of the Mexican Revolution, governed the border as if boundaries were suggestions, and remains the only Mexican commander to launch a military invasion of the United States.

Professional poster prints available now.

Shop now $25

Sixty seven years. That is how long Sonora and Arizona have run the oldest binational commission between our two countries. Last month in Hermosillo, for the first time, both governors skipped it. Katie Hobbs cancelled. Alfonso Durazo never showed. The most important cooperation mechanism Mexico and the United States have, and neither leader took the seat.

I know that room. I ran the Arizona Mexico Commission as its executive director and served as vice chair. When the governors are present, real agreements get signed and real problems get solved. When they are not, you get what Sonora got: incomplete committees, staffers standing in for heads of state, and agreements with no legal standing. One local outlet was so embarrassed it recycled photos from the 2024 plenary, when both governors actually shared the stage, to paper over the empty chairs this year.

Here is what worries me most. The agenda skipped the defining state issue of 2026: water. The Colorado River is in its worst year on record, the rules that govern it expire in December, and Arizona faces the deepest cuts of any state. Sonora draws from the same river. Managing that shared shortage is exactly what this commission was built to do, and exactly what it did not do.

There is an opening inside this failure. Arizona business cannot tie its future to a partnership that stops showing up. Jalisco already anchors 70 percent of Mexico’s semiconductor industry, home to Intel’s design engineers and Foxconn’s new Nvidia line in Guadalajara. Geography made Sonora our natural partner. Talent could make Jalisco our next one.

I love this region too much to watch it coast. Repair the Arizona - Sonora relationship, yes. But diversify, and start now.

Saturday this country turned 250. I watched the fireworks as a man who was born in Mexico and chose to become an American, and I felt both halves of that story at once. Here is what an investor should take from the moment. The next 250 years of American prosperity will not be won alone. They will be won with Mexico.

Look at the ledger, not the rhetoric. Mexico is now the top trading partner of the United States, roughly 900 billion dollars in two way trade, and North American commerce clears 1.6 trillion dollars a year. That is not charity. That is the most integrated coproduction engine on earth, and it sits on our doorstep.

The smart capital already understands this. The critical minerals the country cannot source without China run through Mexico and get processed in Yuma. The semiconductor future Phoenix is building needs the Phoenix - Nogales corridor to feed it. And the 40 million Mexican connected residents here are not a talking point. They are the workforce, the consumers, and the founders of what comes next.

This is the thesis behind Intermestic Capital. We invest where the two countries meet, in minerals, infrastructure, and border industry, because that seam is where American security and American returns now line up. Our EB-5 opportunities carry a national security weight that makes them genuinely exclusive.

A country turning 250 gets to choose its next chapter. I know where the growth is. It is south, and it is shared. That is how we unlock the full potential of North American leadership.

Something happened in New York on June 23 that every Democrat should study, and most Latinos already feel. Three candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America swept their primaries. The headline result: a 32 year old democratic socialist unseated Adriano Espaillat, a five term congressman, the first Dominican American ever elected to Congress, and the sitting chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Read that last part twice. The chair of the Hispanic Caucus, pushed out by the party’s socialist wing. I say this as a Democrat and as a proud son of Mexico: this is a warning, not a celebration.

Here is what the data shows, and what the slogans hide. Those socialist candidates ran strongest in the wealthy, young, college educated precincts. The incumbents held the lower income neighborhoods, the working families, the very people the movement claims to speak for. A politics built for the faculty lounge does not translate to the panadería or the job site.

The 40 million of us with roots in Mexico are not a monolith, but most of us are not socialists. We believe in hard work, in owning a business, in faith and family, in a country that rewards effort. Push the party too far left and you hand those voters to the other side, exactly as 2024 already showed.

I am not asking Democrats to abandon their conscience. I am asking them to remember who built this coalition. Win us back with opportunity, not ideology. Because if the party keeps mistaking a college campus for the country, it will keep losing the people it needs most.

What a run. Mexico gave us everything last night, and even in defeat I have never been prouder of El Tri. At the Azteca, in a thunderstorm delayed classic, they fell to England 3 to 2 in the round of 16. Read the run before you mourn the result. Mexico topped their group, did not concede a single goal all tournament, and handled Ecuador 2 to 0. Then they walked into their own cathedral and went toe to toe with one of the world’s best.

England jumped ahead on a Bellingham brace. Most teams fold there. Mexico did not. Julián Quiñones struck back, and when England went down to ten men, Raúl Jiménez buried a penalty to make it a one goal game. The Azteca shook. Mexico pushed to the final whistle and came up just short. That is not a failure. That is a team that honored its people.

Now the tournament comes home to this side of the border. Today, the United States plays Belgium in Seattle, chasing its first quarterfinal in 24 years. I will be watching with the same heart I gave Mexico, because that is what it means to be fronterizo.

Look at a kid like Ricardo Pepi, born in El Paso to a Mexican family, now wearing the American shirt at a home World Cup. That is the story of the 40 million of us who carry two flags and one identity. Our children do not have to choose between their roots and their future. They get to carry both onto the biggest stage in the world.

Two teams. One region. Keep watching, and keep believing.

Thanks for reading Power Courier by Marco Lopez! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.