Investors, mariachis, and a lucha libre fight — Mexico City delivered

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Schiff Sovereign’s CEO, Viktorija, who is originally from Lithuania but lives in Mexico.]

We were sitting in the eighth row when it happened: the slap heard ‘round the stadium.

Tessa Blanchard’s opponent smacked her across the chest so hard that the sound— a sharp crack— carried all the way through the area.

Talk about a Plan B: Tessa is an American professional wrestler who has managed to diversify abroad by competing in Mexico’s “lucha libre” circuit. It’s basically the Mexican version of WWE, which looks pretty much exactly like you think it would.

(For the record, Tessa didn’t go down. She didn’t even pause. She shook off the slap and ‘won’ the match, much to the crowd’s delight.)

This went down last Friday; a group of our Total Access members had joined me in Mexico City for a long weekend wanting to experience some real local flavor. So there we were, cheering our butts off at Lucha Libre for an American girl.

(James and Peter warned me to not call wrestling ‘fake’ lest I end up getting slapped like John Stossel did all those years ago…)

But that was just a small part of the trip… and honestly that’s part of the point: you show up somewhere, let the city surprise you, break bread and make incredible contacts, and go home with stories you didn’t plan to have.

Mexico City surprised a lot of people on this trip. It always does.

I wrote recently about my time in Monterrey— a bustling, business city in northern Mexico for people who want to build great things.

Mexico City (where I actually live) is totally different.

I have to start with the most common misconception that people have about Mexico City: that it’s dangerous and chaotic. I understand where that image comes from. But that idea is a few decades out of date.

Of course there are rough neighborhoods here— just as there are in London, Hong Kong, and Miami. But it’s not prevalent. I never feel unsafe… and I’m a short, blond, European female.

Truthfully, Mexico City is one of the most cosmopolitan, genuinely livable cities I’ve ever been— and I’ve been to more than 100 countries.

It’s very walkable. Parks and world-class museums are everywhere. Architecture constantly shifts from Aztec ruins to colonial grandeur to sleek modernism, sometimes within the same block.

There’s also an amazing restaurant scene that will be impossible to exhaust— Michelin stars and all.  The food alone is worth the trip. And you don’t pay much for any of it.

There’s a LOT of wealth here; there are more private jets in Mexico (most of them here in the city) than anywhere else outside of the US. Mexico City’s middle class is also massive and lives very well.

The city is extremely cultured, advanced, and if you took someone who loves London or Madrid or Berlin and dropped them into local neighborhoods here like Colonia Roma or Polanco, they would feel entirely at home.

We like this city so much that we’ve held multiple events here in the past. A few years back, we organized a large Total Access conference in the city. Vicente Fox— former President of Mexico— attended. That gives you a sense of the level of conversation when our group gets together.

This trip was smaller, more relaxed. We took trajineras— wide, painted wooden boats that look like something between a gondola and a parade float— through the canals of Xochimilco, singing La Bamba alongside mariachis who had simply attached their trajinera to ours and made themselves at home.

Xochimilco is a UNESCO World Heritage site, an ancient network of canals in the south of the city. It’s festive and slightly chaotic and completely unlike anything else in the world.

We ate tacos standing on the sidewalk at a local stand I’ve been going to for years; they’re so good that even Anthony Bourdain said it’s his favorite taco spot.

We also ate at one of the finest restaurants in the city. Both were excellent for completely different reasons. That combination— street food and Michelin stars, ancient canals and gleaming business parks— is Mexico City in a nutshell.

But let me give you the bigger picture, because there’s a real investment angle here that goes beyond lifestyle.

The global order is restructuring. Trade relationships, alliances, supply chains— all of it is moving. Think about it like a very large, very messy divorce between the US and China. And the kids are being forced to pick sides.

Mexico, practically speaking, is going to end up on the US side of that split, if for no other reason than geography, economic gravity, and thirty years of deeply integrated trade.

That matters, because Mexico brings a lot to its relationship with the US. Vast manufacturing infrastructure. Enormous natural resources. A large labor force. And— as I wrote about at length in the Monterrey piece— it’s the natural destination for the reshoring of the type of manufacturing that China used to dominate.

You can’t make a lot of stuff in China anymore; the geopolitical risk is too high. You can’t make it in the US either, realistically. The cost is prohibitive. Mexico sits right in the middle and is already absorbing that shift. This isn’t a prediction. It’s happening.

We think Mexico has strong long-term prospects. That’s not a casual observation. It’s a view built on time spent here, conversations with business owners and operators, and watching which way the economic current is actually moving.

One more practical note: getting residency in Mexico is relatively straightforward. The cost of living is low by any developed-world standard. The quality of life— the food, the culture, the weather, the people— is genuinely high.

So as a Plan B destination, this could make sense for a lot of people. But given the significant opportunities on the horizon, it might also be a Plan A.

Source

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur and permanent traveler. His daily letter is both educational and entertaining, and we suggest that those who want unbiased, actionable information about global opportunities sign up for Sovereign Man’s free, actionable newsletter at http://www.SovereignMan.com.

From Simon Black of SovereignMan.com

Source: https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/investors-mariachis-and-a-lucha-libre-fight-mexico-city-delivered-155278/