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Expert Bio
Shannon K. O'Neil is the vice president, deputy director of studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on global trade, supply chains, Mexico, Latin America, and democracy.
Dr. O’Neil is the author of The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter (Yale University Press, October 2022), which chronicles the rise of three main global manufacturing and supply chain hubs and what they mean for U.S. economic competitiveness. She also wrote Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead (Oxford University Press, 2013), which analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations Mexico has undergone over the last three decades and why they matter for the United States. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a frequent guest on national broadcast news and radio programs. Dr. O’Neil has often testified before Congress, and regularly speaks at global academic, business, and policy conferences.
Dr. O’Neil has lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina. She was a Fulbright scholar and a Justice, Welfare, and Economics fellow at Harvard University, and has taught Latin American politics at Columbia University. Before turning to policy, Dr. O'Neil worked in the private sector as an equity analyst at Indosuez Capital and Credit Lyonnais Securities. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in government from Harvard University. She is a member of the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation.
Affiliations:
- Bloomberg Opinion, columnist
- MacroAdvisory Partners, senior advisor
- Tinker Foundation, board of directors, member
Featured
Diplomacy and International Institutions
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The Western Hemisphere needs regional solutions to make the most of the migration wave it faces.
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The window is still open for the region to benefit from the supply chain reshuffle—but not for much longer.
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Many economies in the Americas already have bilateral free trade agreements with Washington, offering a stronger base for nearshoring, deeper integration and higher standards.
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To curb violence and drug trafficking, Mexico needs functioning civilian police forces and court systems, not US military strikes and boots on the ground.
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Fully implementing and funding its 2008 constitutional reform of the justice system would reduce impunity, boost public confidence and uphold the basic rule of law.
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Nearshoring beats reshoring and is the best way for American companies and workers to compete with the biggest economic challenge they face.
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Shannon K. O’Neil offers a powerful case for why regionalization, not globalization, has been the biggest economic trend of the last forty years.
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A case for greater intraregional trade in today’s changing world
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A successful reform of the system is essential not only to reducing poverty, but also to restoring public faith in the country’s democracy.
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Nationalizing Mexico’s lithium reserves and extending state control over electricity and energy will undermine the region’s prosperity and security.
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Halfway through his term, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is moving from bending democratic norms and laws to breaking them—a slide that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.
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Forget all the talk about the region’s “pink tide” and focus on which candidate is most likely to lift the greatest number of boats.
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Once the region’s no-frills, free-market poster child, Chile needs more government spending, not less, to sustain its growth trajectory.
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Once able to rely on larger-than-life finance ministers, the region’s business leaders now need to make the public case for free markets via retail politics.
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President Lopez Obrador’s plan to renationalize electricity generation will make it more expensive, dirtier and less reliable and jeopardize the inclusive economic growth he says he wants.
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The key to its success will be dodging zero-sum choices between the two superpowers.
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Suing U.S. gun makers may be good law and politics, but that won’t fix Mexico’s police or courts and end its culture of impunity.
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When it comes to “friendshoring,” Latin America has much to offer, and much to gain.
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With its clean energy matrix, the region could capitalize on the green transition—if leaders in Mexico and Brazil get with the program.