There are moments when markets remind you that risk does not arrive in a spreadsheet.
Sometimes it arrives in smoke.
On February 23, a tourist in Puerto Vallarta described driving to the airport while swerving around burned-out cars in the middle of the street.
Hours earlier, Mexican forces had killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
What followed was coordinated retaliation. Authorities reported 85 roadblocks across more than a dozen states. At least 62 people died.
By Monday morning, markets reacted.
Shares of Controladora Vuela Compañía de Aviación fell more than 4 percent. Airport operators Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico and Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste dropped sharply.
Flights were canceled. Security forces surged into Jalisco.
For years, cartel violence was treated as a tragic but local story. Investors read about it and moved on. That era is over.
Mexico is now the largest goods trading partner of the United States, with $872.8 billion in total trade in 2025. That represents 15.6 percent of total U.S. goods trade.
Those numbers are not abstract. They represent factories, trucking routes, rail lines, ports of entry, warehouses, and payrolls that stretch from Monterrey to Michigan.
When coordinated roadblocks shut down highways in multiple states, that disruption flows north.
This is what nearshoring changed.
The Hidden Cost of Nearshoring