Maquilador-AHHH!!!

Doing business in Mexico? Never for the faint of heart. To say the least.

From this week's AP news wire:

Mexican reporters on gov't tourism trip kidnapped

MORELIA, Mexico — A government media tour to promote tourism in southwestern Mexico went awry when machete-wielding Indians briefly kidnapped 13 reporters on the trip, officials said Sunday. Fifteen people trying to film a beer commercial were also abducted.

Thankfully, no one was harmed. I sure hope there were a few cold ones around the film set. Because after getting abducted, who wouldn't need a drink?

Connector Specifier has covered Mexican manufacturing options for connector and wiring harness manufacturers. There's been a lot of good arguments for it. This, from the website of Maquiladora Management Service - Made in Mexico Inc.:

Discover the Cost-Saving Benefits of Mexico Manufacturing with Maquiladoras -- Inexpensive labor, possible duty-free importation into Mexico, favorable U.S. tariffs, reduced freight cost and turnaround time, and more - competitive advantages abound with Maquiladoras. Unfortunately, so does red tape.

Yeah, and so does the possibility of getting abducted. You know, they say kidnapping is also a growth industry, south of the border.

These days, you couldn't get me to even go to Mexico -- never mind set up a contract manufacturing operation. The AP story cited above is mild in comparison to some others. As the story goes on to note:

Last month, gunmen opened fire on a group of European and Mexican rights activists, journalists and teachers union representatives who were attempting to reach a Triqui Indian village in central Mexico besieged by rival political factions. Two activists from Finland and Mexico were killed.

And there's other weird stuff happening in Mexico. Also this week, the Mexican government announced it would limit cash transactions with US dollars in an attempt to combat crime. Why? Because the drug gangs are getting so rampant down there, verging on completely lawless, in fact. Way, way out of control -- the government practically admits it.

How can this be a good environment for U.S. manufacturers to do business in? It seems contrary to logic.

So is outsourcing manufacturing to Mexico, once thought to be a good idea for U.S companies, now kind of a bad idea? Has it always kind of been? NAFTA having panned out, after all, as a kind of brutal, double-edged sword?

I'll say this, albeit without much qualification, but here goes: In quickly searching around Google for Mexican manufacturing pros and cons in the writing of this blog, my impression was that there's not much to be found out there of what you might call recent vintage. Even the cheerleading for it seems to have waned in recent years. Gut impressions here, admittedly. Would love to be proven wrong.

What about the idea of truly re-committing to the idea of manufacturing here, in the good old U.S. of A.? Some have suggested that more and more this option might be taking on the character of a national imperative. Because, while we're on the subject, let's take the topic of manufacturing in China. How's that been working out lately?