Herminio Blanco Mendoza

Herminio Alonso Blanco Mendoza (b. July 25, 1950 in Chihuahua) is a Mexican economist. He was the chief Mexican negotiator of the North American Free Trade Agreement and served as Secretary of Commerce and Industry in the cabinet of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León.

Blanco in the son of Baltazar Arturo Blanco Valenzuela and Hortensia Mendoza Rosas. He graduated from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies with a bachelor's degree in economics and from the University of Chicago with both a master's and a doctorate's degree in the same discipline.

From 1980 to 1985 Blanco read several courses in economics at Rice University. In his last year he joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and started working as an economics advisor to President Miguel de la Madrid in Mexico City. When President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office, Blanco joined the cabinet as undersecretary of foreign trade (1988 – 1990) and later on as head of the North American Free Trade Agreement Negotiation Office.

Blanco Mendoza is married to Ana Elena Portilla Gutiérrez.

Source: "Diccionario biográfico del gobierno mexicano", Ed. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 1992.