El Economista

Mexican center-right, pro-business / free-market

Background

El Economista was founded on December 5, 1988, in Mexico City by journalists Luis Enrique Mercado and Martín Casillas de Alba, timed to Mexico's shift toward neoliberal economic policy under President Carlos Salinas. The paper quickly became Mexico's primary business daily and prints on distinctive salmon-pink paper reminiscent of the Financial Times. Mercado, a veteran economic journalist from El Universal, led the paper until 2008. In December 2008, Nacer Global—a conglomerate run by entrepreneur Jorge Nacer Gobera, best known for owning a network of low- and mid-cost private universities—acquired the newspaper. Nacer Global later purchased Grupo Editorial Expansión (which publishes Forbes Mexico and Expansión magazine) for $65 million, cementing its position as a significant player in Mexican business media. El Economista has expanded steadily in digital, launching an AI editorial assistant called LANA drawn from its archive. Editorially, the paper consistently promotes free trade, deregulation, and privatization, placing it at odds with Mexico's left-leaning Morena governments and with the protectionist tariff policies of the Trump administration. Its coverage of Trump's second-term tariffs—which reached 25 percent or more on many Mexican goods—has been consistently critical, framing them as a threat to Mexico's export-led growth and its integration with the North American economy.

Sources

1. El Economista (Mexico) – Wikipedia
2. El Economista (Mexico) – Grokipedia
3. Luis Enrique Mercado – Wikipedia
4. El Economista | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
5. Nacer Global acquires Grupo Editorial Expansión – El Economista España
6. El Economista – Crunchbase Profile

Profile compiled 2026-07-28; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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