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Geopolitics

Fleeing Violence, Central American Child Migrants Flock Into Mexico

Giacomo Tognini

MEXICO CITY — As the Trump administration threatens to expel nearly a million undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children, Mexico is seeing a spike in arrivals of children fleeing violence in Central America.

Over the past four years, the number of unaccompanied minors from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador seeking asylum in the country surged by 350%, the Mexico City daily El Universalreports.

Many of those children seek to migrate further north to the United States, a journey made more perilous by Washington's anti-immigration crackdown. One of them is Eduardo, who decided to flee San Pedro Sula in Honduras three months ago, when street gangs in the neighborhood he worked threatened to kill him and his family. He still has his sights set on crossing the U.S. border but will stay in Mexico if he has to. Either way, he has no intention of going back home.

"If I returned they would sink their claws into me," Eduardo told El Universal, referring to the gangs, known locally as maras or pandillas.

Since 2013, 90% of the people offered asylum in Mexico hail from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — Central America's so-called "Northern Triangle" — where rampant gang activity and heavy-handed police repression have sent homicide rates soaring. COMAR, the agency that processes such requests, received over 6,000 applications in the first half of this year, more than the total for 2016.

Fearing the possibility of deportation from the United States, more child migrants, it appears, are choosing to end their journey here.

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Economy

Globalization Takes A New Turn, Away From China

China is still a manufacturing juggernaut and a growing power, but companies are looking for alternatives as Chinese labor costs continue to rise — as do geopolitical tensions with Beijing.

Photo of a woman working at a motorbike factory in China's Yunnan Province.

A woman works at a motorbike factory in China's Yunnan Province.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — What were the representatives of dozens of large American companies doing in Vietnam these past few days?

A few days earlier, a delegation of foreign company chiefs currently based in China were being welcomed by business and government leaders in Mexico.

Then there was Foxconn, Apple's Taiwanese subcontractor, which signed an investment deal in the Indian state of Telangana, enabling the creation of 100,000 jobs. You read that right: 100,000 jobs.

What these three examples have in common is the frantic search for production sites — other than China!

For the past quarter century, China has borne the crown of the "world's factory," manufacturing the parts and products that the rest of the planet needs. Billionaire Jack Ma's Alibaba.com platform is based on this principle: if you are a manufacturer and you are looking for cheap ball bearings, or if you are looking for the cheapest way to produce socks or computers, Alibaba will provide you with a solution among the jungle of factories in Shenzhen or Dongguan, in southern China.

All of this is still not over, but the ebb is well underway.

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