On Thursday, Reuters reported that China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing will launch in Mexico next year. The move would mark Didi's first expansion of its services beyond China. It also underscores Didi's existential threat to Uber, its U.S. counterpart.

The companies will soon share a major investor in Softbank, which has led to speculation they would get out of each other's way in the global market. But history seems likelier to repeat itself, at this point.

Didi has the potential to checkmate Uber in Latin America, if not the Americas entirely.

The two companies have been in a slow-moving war for years. In 2016, Didi muscled Uber out of its home base of China. Uber had rolled out its ridehailing services in 60 different cities there, with 150 million trips driven per month through its platform. But Uber was also racking up losses of more than $1 billion in China annually.

What Uber had going then, was a huge amount of equity funding, and other eager investors waiting in the wings. Then Didi managed to raise $1 billion from Apple for growth. And it became clear that Uber would not be able to out-spend its rivals on their home turf.