Ms. Reyes is paid in Mexican pesos, a currency that has been losing value as the Fed, the<br />central bank of the United States, has signaled plans to raise interest rates this year.<br />“Every time the peso goes down, we can afford less and less,” Ms. Reyes said on a recent evening, as pale desert light gave way to chilly darkness.<br />“We use blankets,” Ms. Reyes said, “and what love we have.”<br />Peter S. Goodman reported from Ciudad Juárez, Keith Bradsher from Beijing and Neil Gough from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.<br />Across China, hundreds of millions of people who have plowed their savings into real<br />estate are vulnerable if too much money washes out at once and housing prices drop.<br />The episode became known as “the taper tantrum.”<br />“The effect of interest rate increases on emerging countries is surprisingly strong,” said Gary Clyde<br />Hufbauer, an international trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.<br />Rising interest rates in the United States are driving money out of many developing<br />countries, straining governments and pinching consumers around the globe.<br />Prices rose by 20 percent for almost everything in the last month.”<br />In Mexico, Francisca Hervis Reyes has no way to cut her own costs, beyond putting less food on the table.<br />Mexico’s central bank has been steadily lifting rates to protect its currency in the face of a possible trade war with the United States.
