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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves in front of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as they deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he deplanes at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, shows the way to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, greets to US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, in hat, as he arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Behind at right is US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken deplanes at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, front, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A high-level United States delegation on Monday invited Mexico to participate in a push to shift semiconductor production from Asia to North America and expand production of electric vehicles.
Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about recently passed legislation that would provide $28 billion in incentives for semiconductor production, $10 billion for new manufacturing of chips and $11 billion for research and development.
López Obrador, for his part, explained his plan to make the northern border state of Sonora a leader in lithium, electric vehicle and solar energy production, Ebrard said. Lithium is a key component of batteries for electric vehicles. The president said last month he had already discussed the idea with U.S. President Joe Biden.
The U.S. delegation was in Mexico for a new round of High Level Economic Dialogue. The U.S. side was represented by Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jayme White, and Juan González, the National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere.
The dialogue, which was launched by then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2013, resumed last year in Washington after stopping during the Trump administration.
The global shortage of semiconductors has slashed into production of autos, household appliances and other goods, fueling high inflation. Biden appeared at the future site of a massive Intel plant in Ohio on Friday.
Last month, López Obrador said the government had created the state-run lithium company that would be in charge of the exploration and extraction of the mineral. Mexico nationalized lithium production in May.
Asked about ongoing trade disputes between the U.S. and Mexico in the energy sector, Ebrard said there was a separate process for resolving those disagreements and that it was not an agenda item for these meetings.
Ahead of the talks, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols, who is also attending, said one of the priorities for the talks was promoting development in southern Mexico and Central America.
U.S. border agents’ encounters with migrants from the Northern Triangle countries — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — have been running lower this year than last, despite overall encounters at the border being up this year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Encounters with Mexican migrants have also been higher for most of the past year.
Mexico has more recently avoided direct clashes with migrants moving across its territory, instead regularly offering them temporary documents to relieve pressure at its southern border.
López Obrador has more recently come under fire from some international and domestic organizations for transferring the recently created National Guard to the Defense Ministry. In many ways, the military already ran the force — and filled its ranks — but it had been created as a civilian force. López Obrador criticized the U.N. and the Organization of American States Monday for expressing their concern over the move.
Mexico continues to struggle with high rates of violence. On Friday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons said at the conclusion of a visit to Mexico that the violence related to Mexico’s drug cartels was the main force causing internal displacements. She called on the government to create an official registry of the displaced, but said data collected from non-governmental organizations suggested there are some 400,000.
The talks come just days before Mexico celebrates its independence day, to which López Obrador has invited figures such as the daughter of revolutionary leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the father of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
At López Obrador’s daily news conference Monday, the president said he planned to submit a proposal to the U.N. aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. López Obrador, who did not join other countries by imposing economic sanctions on Russia, proposed creating a mediation commission made up by Pope Francis, the U.N. secretary general and India’s prime minister that would open talks between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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A global search for alternative sources to Russian energy during the war in Ukraine has refocused attention on smaller, easier-to-build nuclear power stations. Proponents say they could provide a cheaper, more efficient alternative to older model mega-plants. U.K.-based Rolls-Royce SMR says its small modular reactors, or SMRs, are cheaper and quicker to get running than standard plants, delivering the kind of energy security that many nations are seeking. But the reactors are many years away from operating and cannot solve the energy crisis now hitting Europe. Nuclear power also poses risks, including disposing of highly radioactive waste and keeping that technology out of the hands of rogue countries that may pursue a nuclear weapons program.
When it came time to showcase its electric Chevrolet Equinox SUV to the public this year, General Motors decided against doing so at the big Detroit auto show, as it typically would have done in the past. Instead, it unveiled the Equinox six days earlier. GM’s decision symbolized just how much smaller this year’s auto show will be, with few new model debuts, less-glitzy displays, fewer journalists and possibly lower attendance. Though the pandemic is partly to blame, larger forces are at play, too: Automakers have figured out that new models can make a bigger splash when they’re unveiled to a digital audience on a day where they don’t have to share the spotlight with their rivals.
A North Carolina-based semiconductor company says it will build a $5 billion manufacturing plant in its home state to produce silicon carbide wafers. Wolfspeed Inc. announced on Friday that it plans to create 1,800 new jobs by the end of 2030 at a location in Chatham County. Wolfspeed could receive $775 million in cash incentives, infrastructure improvements and other sweeteners from North Carolina and local governments to build. The silicon carbide chips are emerging as a favored part for renewable energy products. The jobs announcement marked another big economic win for central North Carolina. Apple and Toyota are among the companies that are planning to build there.
A group of computer and election security experts is urging Georgia officials to take extra security steps ahead of November’s midterm elections. They responded to what they call “serious threats” posed by an apparent breach of voting equipment in Coffee County. Their letter was sent Thursday to members of the State Election Board and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. It urges them to immediately stop using the state’s touchscreen voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems and to instead have voters use hand-marked paper ballots. And it suggests mandating a risk-limiting statewide post-election audit on the outcome of all the races on the ballot.
General Motors’ self-driving car company has announced plans to expand a robotaxi service into new markets in Arizona and Texas before the end of this year. Cruise told invertors at a banking conference Monday that an autonomous ride-hailing service that began charging San Francisco passengers in June will make its debut in Phoenix and Austin, Texas, within the next 90 days. The ride-hailing service will consist of vehicles that won’t have a safety driver to take control in case the robotic technology malfunctions. General Motors bought the San Francisco startup six years ago.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the Twitter whistleblower who is warning of security flaws, privacy threats and lax controls at the social platform, will take his case to Congress on Tuesday. Senators who will hear Zatko’s testimony are alarmed by his allegations at a time of heightened concern over the safety of powerful tech platforms. Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, was Twitter’s head of security until he was fired in January. He has brought the allegations to Congress and federal regulators, asserting that the influential social platform misled regulators about its cyber defenses and efforts to control millions of fake accounts.
President Joe Biden tried to set politics aside at the Ohio groundbreaking of a new Intel computer chip facility. But a tough Senate contest in the state and a Democratic candidate seeking to distance himself from the White House reflected the challenge of translating Biden’s policy wins into political gains. The president, who championed the legislation that helped lure Intel, went to Ohio just as voters in the state are starting to tune in to a closely contested Senate race between Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican author and venture capital executive JD Vance. Intel had delayed groundbreaking on the $20 billion plant until Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.
One of the European Union’s highest courts has largely upheld a huge fine issued to Google by the bloc’s antitrust enforcers in 2018 over its Android mobile operating system. The European Court of Justice’s General Court on Wednesday mostly confirmed a European Commission decision to slap Google with a fine of more than 4 billion euros for stifling competition through the dominance of Android. The court said it was appropriate to give Google a fine of 4.125 billion euros, slightly lower than the original 4.34 billion euro penalty.
The Taliban’s defense ministry says at least three crew members were killed when the U.S.-manufactured Black Hawk helicopter they were flying crashed. The statement Saturday said that five others were wounded in the accident during a training session overseen by Afghanistan’s defense ministry at the capital of Kabul. It is not known how many U.S. choppers remain in the hands of the Taliban government. As the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in mid-August last year, dozens of Afghan pilots fled to Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
A growing number of American shoppers have jumped at the chance to use “buy now, pay later” loans to pay for new sneakers, electronics, or luxury goods in installments. Companies such as Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna and PayPal have built popular financial products around these short-term loans, particularly for younger borrowers, who are fearful of never-ending credit card debt. But as the industry continues to rack up customers, delinquencies are climbing. Inflation is squeezing consumers, making it tougher to pay off debts. Some borrowers don’t budget properly, particularly if they are persuaded to take out multiple loans, while others may have been credit risks to begin with.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves in front of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as they deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken waves as he deplanes at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, shows the way to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Blinken will meet with Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, greets to US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, in hat, as he arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Behind at right is US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, left, welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Blinken arrives to Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken deplanes at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, front, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo deplane at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022.
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