Mexico’s GDP Possibly 400 Percent Larger If Not For …

On Feb. 2, 1848, Mexico and the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which our country ceded more than half its territory at the time.

What are now the states of California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, as well as a part of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma passed into the hands the United States, while Mexico received $15 million at the time as compensation for the Mexican-American War — the “U.S. Intervention in Mexico,” to Mexicans — which had spread through the country since 1846.

Losing these states could have been an economic blow to the Mexico of the future, as the gross domestic product of these states totals $4.7 trillion, nearly 28 percent of the U.S. GDP.

If these states had remained in Mexican hands, the GDP of our country in 2013 might have been a bit more than $6 trillion, as compared to the $1.6 trillion that was produced.

However, it must be mentioned that there is no guarantee that Mexico would have taken advantage of these states’ resources in the same way.

One of the reasons why Mexico so easily lost the territory was its inability to defend it because it did not have a large population or adequate financial resources. The population that spread into the North did so thanks to the sale of land at a low price to foreigners who were willing to become Mexican.

On the other hand, the U.S. had resources and a huge interest in expansion, which motivated it to exploit its new territories to the maximum.

Without the treaty, Mexico probably would have taken on more debt to keep fighting against the United States, which may have harmed the government’s finances. This would have further impaired the country’s ability to develop, and those territories might have been squandered.