“I expected the increase to be phased in over two periods, but they raised it all at once by 10% in the first half of the year, and I told my operator, ‘You can’t raise it again in the second half of the year, I just can’t take it anymore.’” The voice of a transportation user encapsulates a pressure that has ceased to be exceptional and has become a constant: the direct impact of geopolitics on logistics costs and business operations in Mexico.
What until a few years ago was perceived as distant conflicts —particularly in regions like the Middle East— now has concrete effects on the cost structure of supply chains .
Geographical distance is no longer a buffer; in an interconnected environment, any tension translates into immediate adjustments in prices, routes and availability of inputs.
In this new global landscape, geopolitical conflicts have ceased to be isolated events and have become catalysts for economic transformations . As Sergio Hernández, president and CEO of CIAL Dun & Bradstreet in Mexico, warns, “geopolitical conflicts are generating greater fragmentation of global trade and a regionalization of supply chains.”
One of the most immediate transmission channels is the energy market. The rise in oil prices—driven by international tensions, according to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) —has a dual effect for Mexico: it increases oil revenues, but at the same time raises the cost of containing gasoline prices through tax incentives.
In scenarios like the current one, that benefit can be diluted, as already happened in 2022 with the subsidy to the Special Tax on Production and Services (IEPS).
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