What would tip the scale? Probably not what you’d think.
Tensions between Mexico and the U.S. continue to escalate. On January 28, The Guardian noted how brazen claims of military mobilization onto Mexican soil once “sounded like a scene out of ‘Sicario,’” but was now “a possible reality.”
And on February 25, Mexico’s Senate committees approved President Claudia Sheinbaum’s proposal to amend Articles 19 and 40 of the Constitution, “explicitly prohibit[ing] foreign interventions, including… territorial violations by land, sea, air, or space” after the U.S. designated six Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” (Feb. 26 The Rio Times)
The words are getting more aggressive. But what would tip the scale into military action?
The March 2025 Socionomist report “Might a Trade War with Mexico Lead to an Actual War with Mexico?” by Salvador P. Barragan explains how social mood – as reflected in real stock values – is the ultimate wild card in whether the U.S.-Mexico relations go from “constructive and collaborative” or “bellicose and violent.”
In his report, Barragan sheds light on a disproportionately deadly year in Mexico’s drug war history, 2008, and writes:
History shows that social mood governs society’s tolerance for recreational drugs. “The Coming Collapse of Modern Prohibition (Socionomic Causality in Politics, p. 432) used the Bolsa index as a sociometer to track the violence in the Drug Wars. The study showed that violence increased as the Bolsa index collapsed.”
And that’s just the beginning. Read the full “Might a Trade War with Mexico Lead to an Actual War with Mexico?” report in the brand-new March 2025 Socionomist. The March issue also includes a cover story on how the U.S.’s current, protectionist trade war policies and “universal tariffs” are a familiar manifestation of negative social mood. And more! Purchase the March 2025 Socionomist today, and move into the front seat of your financial, and personal future.
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