A change of power in Washington reaches far beyond the Capitol. For Mexican workers, American businesses, and families on both sides of our shared border, the consequences of the November midterms could be felt in factories, on farms, and in communities struggling with economic uncertainty and insecurity. If Democrats win control of Congress, the question is whether Washington will use the next two years to solve shared problems or allow partisan conflict to make them harder to solve.
Let me be clear about where I stand. I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, and I cannot vote in American elections. I represent working families across nearly 600 workplaces in Mexico, including employees of global companies that connect our economies. From inside those workplaces, I have watched the effects of trade and labor policies under three Democratic administrations. I have seen how decisions made in Washington can shape the lives of workers who have little say in them.
For decades, the offshoring model has too often rewarded corporations for moving production to places where labor is cheaper and workers have less power. American communities have lost jobs and industrial capacity, while Mexican workers have frequently been promised prosperity only to find themselves trapped in poverty wages and unions that answer to management instead of their members. Corporations benefit from the savings, workers on both sides lose bargaining power, and strategic competitors such as China gain opportunities to expand their influence. These are not separate problems. They are connected failures of a system that too often puts cheap labor ahead of human dignity.
Migration is part of this story, too. When families cannot find stable work or live safely at home, some feel compelled to leave. Once in the United States, vulnerable migrants can be exploited by unscrupulous employers, traffickers, and labor recruiters who promise jobs or visas and then take their money.
American workers can face unfair competition, while Mexican families are separated and communities lose the people they need to thrive. Compassion should mean protecting people from exploitation, not preserving a system that profits from their vulnerability.
The United States and Mexico exchanged an estimated $964 billion in goods and services in 2025. The USMCA, meanwhile, is approaching its next joint review in 2027, with consultations already underway. That makes the coming political period especially important.
My proposal is straightforward: fair trade must mean fair wages. I have advocated a regional wage floor of $7.25 an hour as a condition for trade preferences, drawing on the USMCA’s existing $16-an-hour labor-value rule for certain automotive production. The idea is to make it harder for companies to compete by keeping workers poor, while giving Mexican families a stronger reason to build their futures at home. This would require a realistic, phased transition, potentially over six years, with progress reviewed along the way. The goal is not to punish Mexico or disrupt American industry. It is to raise standards so that workers in both countries can share in the prosperity they help create.
That standard must apply to everyone. Some American businesses, including businesses whose owners may support Republicans, benefit from underpaid or unauthorized labor. They cannot condemn exploitation in public while quietly profiting from it in their payrolls. At the same time, policies on both sides of the border should make lawful work and self-sufficiency achievable. With 42.1 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits in an average month in fiscal year 2025, the challenge of making work pay is plainly significant. That figure does not tell us why each person needs assistance, but it reminds us that economic policy must help families move toward stability and opportunity.
The USMCA already offers a tool for protecting workers: its Rapid Response Labor Mechanism, which has helped secure remedies for employees punished for organizing. In a 2026 case involving a Mexican automotive supplier, workers were reinstated with back pay and benefits, and protections for independent union activity were strengthened. This is the kind of enforcement that can build trust. It should be consistent, transparent, and focused on workers’ rights, not selectively deployed as a political weapon. American workers deserve a fair playing field; Mexican workers deserve the freedom to organize and earn wages that support their families. Those interests are not in conflict.
There is something else Washington’s political class too often overlooks: working families have values as well as economic needs. In Mexico, faith is part of everyday life. We go to Mass, honor the Virgen de Guadalupe, cherish our children, and believe that every new life is a blessing from the moment of conception. We believe Jesus Christ is King. We believe women deserve dignity, respect, and protection, and that families are strengthened by responsibility, faith, and love across generations. Economic progress should not require us to abandon these convictions. The dignity of a person does not come from a corporation or a government; it comes from something greater than either.
The United States has its own rich traditions of faith, family, and community. These values can be a foundation for cooperation, even when our political parties disagree. A serious partnership must also confront criminal organizations that profit from fentanyl trafficking, extortion, and human smuggling.
Neither country can solve these problems alone. We need firm enforcement, honest institutions, and practical cooperation that protects ordinary people instead of turning public safety into a campaign slogan.
I am not asking Americans to vote based on Mexican interests, nor am I claiming that every Democrat wants a permanent underclass of cheap, rightless labor across the region, though too many of their policies have behaved exactly as if someone did. I am asking Americans to weigh what working families across North America stand to lose if a change in congressional control brings two years of political warfare, a socialist agenda, and an open border that enriches the cartels your own government has designated as terrorist organizations, at a cost in American lives that has already been counted in the hundreds of thousands.
Whoever holds power should be judged by one standard: do they keep their people safe and prosperous, strengthen secure supply chains, enforce labor protections for every worker in the region, support lawful employment, and help families build a better future for their children.
There is no "America First" in a strategy that leaves Mexico permanently weak and dependent on poverty wages. And there is no dignity for the American or the Mexican worker in a system that treats them both as disposable costs. Build an economy where work is rewarded, families stay together, faith is respected and workers on both sides of the border prosper, and North America will not just be stronger. It will be the most prosperous, powerful, and just region on the planet.
Because in the simplist terms, the best border policy is a good paycheck.
