Air Date: June 12, 2013
In the third episode of “Big Shots With Giselle Fernandez,” our short video series featuring business leaders and cultural influencers from around the Globe, Fernandez sits down with Vicente Fox, the former President of Mexico. Best known for becoming the first opposition party candidate to be elected head of the Mexican government in more than 70 years back in 2000, Fox is currently on the board of directors of A Better LA, the nonprofit founded by NFL coach Pete Carroll to improve life for impoverished Angelenos. Why is he spending most of his time fund-raising here in Los Angeles? He tells Fernandez it is to empower Latinos on both sides of the border.
Fox believes Immigration Reform will benefit the U.S. economy more than any other—and, if they get behind it, the Republican Party, too. “The way back to the White House has to go through the Hispanic world,” says Fox, who attended a Boot Summit about the issue with President George W. Bush in 2000.
What do the negative headlines about Mexico’s violent drug war mean for the country’s economy? According to Fox: not much. “Our currency is very stable,” he says, “We are very competitive with the dollar today.”
Fox recommends American investors should look west and south. “Latin America and Mexico will become—I don’t have any doubt—the engine of the world economy together with Asia.”