Mexico and the United States have the opportunity to deepen their commercial relationship as a result of the changing world order due to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau said Friday during a web event hosted by The Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations.

With Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and U.S. President Donald Trump embracing the new United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, he said that now “is a moment when Mexico could really be benefitting from the general realignment between the United States and China.”

The United States and Mexico have worked together closely to combat the coronavirus — despite the popular perception of animosity between the two nations — and evidence of this lies in the way in which the border was swiftly closed to non-essential business without incident.

Landau also cited the fact that General Motors had refitted its factory in Toluca to make face masks, with a portion of these masks donated to local hospitals, as a sign of the collaboration between U.S. private industry and Mexico.

“Both presidents want to have a good relationship with the other country,” Landau said. “Both of them value this relationship and it paid off dividends the night the [border] decision was made.”

The struggle right now for the United States and Mexico however is coordinating supply chain routes so that industries in the United States that rely on Mexican input do not face setbacks as they start moving again.

“This pandemic has laid bare that we need to do more on the economic front in terms of talking about essential industries in times of crisis,” Landau said.

The automotive industry in the United States is set to resume operations, but Mexico is a few weeks behind on the contagion curve and remains in Phase 3 of the coronavirus lockdown, with nonessential businesses shuttered until May 30.

Total trade between Mexico and the United States amounted to $615 billion last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Mexico is the top trading partner to the United States, sending some 75% of its exports north, but many export industries remain closed.

In April, there were reports of clusters of coronavirus cases emerging in factories in industrial areas in Mexico just south of the U.S. border.

“The key is to come up with a way to protect worker health without completely stopping economic activity,” Landau said. “I think it’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. I think we are seeing that in China and Europe. Mexico has the advantage of being at the end of the worldwide curb of this so there are a lot of lessons learned from other parts of the world.”

So far, Landau said he has been working on “an ad hoc basis” with U.S. companies to “try to get exemptions” so that businesses can be deemed essential and return to work.

The U.S. ambassador also addressed the energy policy of the current Mexican government, and voiced his concern over changes in rules that have hampered private investment.

In his 18 months in office, Mexican President López Obrador has canceled upstream oil and gas rounds and farmout tenders; postponed electricity auctions; slashed the budgets of energy sector regulators; and renegotiated natural gas contracts with developers. Last week, the government also ordered that all tests being done on renewable energy plants be stopped, essentially shutting down for now all new green energy projects being developed by the private sector.

“Obviously, it is up to Mexico as a sovereign country to set the rules of the road when it comes to domestic policy including energy,” he said. “Our message has always been once you set the rules of the road, when private companies then come in and invest under those rules, you have to respect those rules, you can’t keep changing them. We are in contact with the government on our concerns.”

In terms of natural gas, Mexico continues to be the principal foreign destination of U.S.gas; Mexican natural gas imports from the United States are down about 500 MMcf/d compared to the 5.2 Bcf/d observed in March due to the coronavirus slowdown.

Permitting for new energy projects has also been strained.

“I’m hoping that Mexico and the private sector in the United States are able to recognize all the win-win opportunities out there,” Landau said. “We have to quickly identify ways in which we can get money flowing again in both our economies. I have a hard time foreseeing recovery for the Mexican economy that doesn’t include some kind of attractiveness to foreign investment.”