Mexico nationalized its banks and imposed exchange controls during the Latin American debt crisis.
Mexico's crisis became public in August 1982, when Finance Minister Jesús Silva Herzog announced that the country could no longer meet scheduled external-debt payments. Falling oil prices, high international interest rates, heavy borrowing, and capital flight had strained public finances. President José López Portillo then nationalized the banking system and introduced exchange controls in September 1982.
The crisis spread across Latin America as governments struggled to service dollar-denominated loans. International banks reduced lending, while debt restructuring and assistance from the International Monetary Fund and other institutions became central to the response. The episode was not simply a stock-exchange crash: it was primarily a sovereign-debt and banking crisis that produced a prolonged regional economic downturn during the 1980s.