This week, I am breaking down the $850 million Mitsui cobalt deal that is quietly reshaping America’s critical mineral independence, making the case for why Latin American investors need to be paying attention to Arizona’s semiconductor boom right now, and naming exactly why Mexico’s MORENA governing party handed Washington the opening it needed to put 53 Mexican consulates under review.

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// TRADE WINDS

Mitsui’s $850 million cobalt deal and what it means for U.S. critical mineral independence from China

When Intermestic Capital announced that EVelution Energy had entered into a binding $850 million offtake agreement with Mitsui, one of the most sophisticated metal trading houses in the world, the headline was cobalt. But the real story is about strategic independence and what it means for North America’s position in the global race for critical minerals.

EVelution Energy is the developer of the first solar-powered, commercial-scale cobalt processing facility in the United States, located in Yuma County, Arizona. More than 75% of global refined cobalt production is currently concentrated in China, underscoring the strategic importance of developing domestic processing capacity. The binding five-year agreement with Mitsui provides contracted revenue visibility and, critically, signals to the world that allied capital is now moving with allied industrial policy. GlobeNewswire

Intermestic Capital is financing up to $64.8 million in secured subordinated debt through the Intermestic EB5 Fund II, LP under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, to help bring this facility to life. The EVelution Energy EB-5 project has been submitted for expedited USCIS review based on its national security designation, and has received public support from Arizona’s Governor and multiple members of Congress. This is not a speculative venture. It is a project with bipartisan political backing, a major offtake buyer, and a clear national security mandate. GlobeNewswire

When fully operational, the facility is expected to produce up to 40% of estimated U.S. cobalt demand, creating more than 3,300 direct, indirect, and induced jobs and generating over $750 million in economic activity in Yuma County. The facility will run on its own solar power and recycle approximately 70% of its process water. This is what responsible, sovereign supply chain development looks like. EVelution Energy

For those of us who have spent years arguing that border-region investment is national security investment, this deal validates exactly that. Arizona is not a footnote. It is a cornerstone. You can read the full announcement here. Qualified investors can learn more about participating through Intermestic Capital at www.intermesticeb5.com.

// BORDER ART COLLECTION

NO. 001

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

// POWER MOVE

Arizona is the semiconductor universe outside Taiwan. LatAm, are you in?

Let me be direct about something that not enough people in Latin America are saying out loud: the most important semiconductor investment opportunity outside Taiwan is happening right now, 30 minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border, and the region is largely watching from the sidelines.

As of early 2025, TSMC’s wafer fabrication complex in Phoenix represents a total committed investment of $165 billion, making it one of the largest foreign direct investments in U.S. history. Three more semiconductor fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and a major R&D center are planned, cementing Arizona as the epicenter of advanced chip manufacturing in America. Intel has operated its largest manufacturing site in the world in Chandler for over four decades and continues to expand. The global semiconductor foundry market hit a record $320 billion in 2025. That number is not a ceiling. It is a floor.

This is not a story about big companies in a faraway place. This is a story about an ecosystem that needs capital, talent, and partners at every level of the supply chain, from materials to workforce to infrastructure. That is exactly where the opportunity lives for new entrepreneurs and investors from Latin America.

Arizona is already proving that the model works beyond semiconductors. The solar-powered cobalt processing facility that Intermestic Capital is helping finance in Yuma County is another example of what happens when border-region investment aligns with national security priorities and allied industrial policy. Mitsui did not sign an $850 million offtake agreement because this was a nice idea. They signed it because Arizona is becoming the place where critical infrastructure gets built, and smart capital follows that signal.

For Latin American entrepreneurs and family offices looking for a first entry point into this market, the moment is now, before the ecosystem matures and the entry costs rise. Intermestic Capital is actively working with investors and founders who want to understand what participation in this corridor looks like. The window is open. The question is whether our region will walk through it.

// BORDER BUZZ

Mexico’s consulates are under fire. Mexico’s MORENA political party lit the match.

The Trump administration has launched a formal review of all 53 Mexican consulates operating in the United States, a move that could lead to closures and will almost certainly deepen the friction between Washington and Mexico City. The review follows the deaths of two American CIA officers after a counter-narcotics operation in northern Mexico, and comes alongside the Justice Department’s indictment of 10 current and former Mexican officials, including a sitting governor, on drug trafficking charges.

I want to be clear about two things at once, because they are both true.

First, Mexican consulates serve a real and irreplaceable purpose for the approximately 40 million Mexican-connected residents of this country. They provide identity documents, legal aid, consular protection, and a link to home for millions of people who depend on those services. Closing them wholesale would hurt ordinary people, not political operatives.

Second, the MORENA party has spent years making this exact review inevitable by overplaying the political role of consular infrastructure. Before she became president, Claudia Sheinbaum campaigned on U.S. soil at the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles, addressing a packed audience of MORENA party activists. That is not consular work. Since MORENA’s inception, dozens of party-aligned affinity groups have operated in the United States with the help of the ruling party, organized to amplify political support for Mexico’s leadership among immigrants living abroad. MORENA’s own secretary for Mexicans living abroad openly described the mission as organizing “militancy abroad.” Those are his words, not mine. Party work and consular work are different things, and blurring that line on American soil has consequences.

President Sheinbaum this week called the suggestion that consulates engage in political activities “completely false,” but the documented record tells a more complicated story. When a foreign government repeatedly crosses that line, it invites exactly the kind of scrutiny we are seeing now.

The communities I come from deserve consular services that are protected precisely because they stay out of partisan politics. MORENA’s overreach has put that protection at risk, and that is a failure of leadership that deserves to be named.

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