Mexico-US matters

[Crafty_Dog]

a) raw ingredients for fentanyl;

b) 50k and on way to 125K by year's end of Chinese MAMs (Military Aged Males);

c) now this:

"China and Mexico conducted their first direct flight on Sunday with both Ambassadors in tow. The Chinese Ambassador to Mexico said this will facilitate economic and personnel ties between China and all of Latin America."

[Crafty_Dog]

The Americas
Brodie Kirkpatrick, Expeditionary Intelligence

Political Violence in Mexico at Historical High as Elections Draw Closer

As Mexico prepares for a general election next month, political violence has plagued the nation at all levels. Many candidates have been killed, injured, otherwise threatened, or withdrawn from their races.


Introduction

Throughout the month of May, multiple media outlets reported that violence in Mexico leading up to this June’s general election is the highest it has been in recent history. More than two dozen candidates for various offices have been killed leading up to the June 2 vote; hundreds have dropped out of races. Additionally, hundreds of others have asked the federal government for security details. The goal of armed groups is to install corrupted or coerced leaders in local offices so they can better exploit Mexican communities.

Once largely focused on shipping drugs to the United States, the cartels now also smuggle migrants, extort businesses, and win contracts for firms they control.

Cartels have focused most of their efforts on local politics in influential states vying to control things like municipal police, public works, and many other essential departments of state and local governments. This strategy makes controlling mayoral offices crucial, however, despite the large focus on local municipalities, candidates for governor and senate seats are also at high risk. Cartels have targeted candidates from all of Mexico’s major parties. In Maravatío, a municipality of 80,000 in the central state of Michoacan, three candidates for mayor have been killed; two from Morena, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador party, and one from the opposition National Action Party, or PAN. Carlos Palomeque, head of the PAN in Chiapas, says nearly two dozen mayoral candidates from the party have dropped out of their races. It used to be that the cartels bought off voters, he says. Now, “they force candidates from the race. It’s cheaper.”

López Obrador accuses the opposition and media of exaggerating the violence in states across Mexico to discredit his efforts against organized crime. Yet even López Obrador’s protégé, presidential front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum, was stopped by masked men last month in a region of the state controlled by the Sinaloa cartel. The men warned her to “remember the poor people” and waved her through their checkpoint.

Can President Lopez Obrador End Mexico's Drug War?
Despite AMLO’s claims of exaggeration, just in the past 45 days, front-running mayoral candidates in influential states such as Guanajuato, Chiapas, Puebla, and Tabasco have been killed by gunmen. The most notable of those killed was Carlos Narvaez Romero, a member of the Grupo Tabasco, a collective of politicians and influential Mexican business owners closely aligned with President AMLO such as Adán Augusto López, former Secretary of the Interior, Octavio Romero Oropeza, general director of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Javier May, Morena candidate to the governorship of said entity, as well as Rafael Marín Mollinedo, Mexico's ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO), who was also head of the National Customs Agency. Romero was slated to succeed the former head of customs who was killed in 2022. 

Analyst Comment

While political violence is nothing new for Mexico, this election season has proven to be the most violent in recent history. Despite having high political violence, Mexico’s non-state actors vying for influence are not stoking the violence to eventually conduct a coup. Adversely, the cartels want control and to be able to operate behind the scenes with impunity without being thrust into the spotlight of the international stage. Traditionally, cartels have paid off, blackmailed, or coerced officials. However, the recent uptick in violence may signal a change in the modus operandi while also highlighting the lack of control the government has over the situation. To further cement this, cartels have consistently proven to the public that if they speak out against the violence they will likely be tracked, kidnapped, tortured, and/or killed without recourse from authorities as there are multiple accounts of this. Beyond the uptick in violence, the profile of the individuals murdered such as Carlos Romero who was slated to be the next head of customs for the entirety of Mexico has also raised much concern of whether an end to this violence is in sight or if this will be the normal for upcoming elections. Going into the June elections the possibility for violence remains extremely high and is likely to worsen.

[Crafty_Dog]

The Election Stakes in Mexico
The big question: Will the ruling Morena party get a large enough legislative majority to rewrite the constitution?
By
The Editorial Board
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May 19, 2024 4:57 pm ET

Mexicans vote to elect a new President on June 2, not that you’d know it from the lack of American media coverage of our southern neighbor. But the stakes are high, and the biggest question is whether the ruling Morena party of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be able to move closer to his vision of a one-party state.

AMLO, as the President is known, is term limited and won’t be on the ballot. But his handpicked Morena successor, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is leading in the polls and pledges to continue his agenda of leftwing nationalist economics and eliminating constitutional checks and balances.

Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez is a former National Action Party (PAN) senator. She’s running on an ideologically diverse coalition ticket that includes the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution, the centrist PRI and the center-right PAN. The parties have united in concern about a Sheinbaum presidency that could have AMLO pulling the political strings behind the throne.

Entrepreneurship, business competition, strong property rights and open markets are Gálvez campaign themes that set her apart from Ms. Sheinbaum and AMLO. Ms. Gálvez wants Mexico to live up to its free-trade commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and insists the U.S. do the same. On a visit to the Journal in February, she said that as president she would seek closer cooperation with the U.S. on economic and security matters. Ms. Gálvez’s Mexico would be an ally of the West.

This would break with Mr. López Obrador’s foreign policy. He’s been using migration as a bargaining chip with the Biden Administration to ward off U.S. action under USMCA to force Mexico to stop discriminating against foreign energy investors.

AMLO’s Mexico is an ally of Venezuela and Cuba and home to large numbers of Russian intelligence agents, according to U.S. Northern Command in 2022. He claims to follow a policy of not intervening in other countries, but three of his ambassadors have been declared persona non grata for meddling in support of the left in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

Cartel violence and extortion have long scarred Mexico, but they have spiked under AMLO. Mexico isn’t a failed state, at least not yet, but narcos now control large swaths of the country. The AMLO government has used financial investigations and confidential tax records against political adversaries. All of this has undermined the rule of law.

One irony is that AMLO is popular because Mexico has benefited from freer trade and the market reforms of his predecessors. Investment has flowed in as manufacturers seek to set up plants to serve the huge North American market. The Mexican peso has strengthened to nearly 17 to the U.S. dollar from more than 20 in 2018. Real wages are up and job creation is robust.

But AMLO’s policies put this economic progress at risk. The government forecasts a fiscal deficit of 5.9% of GDP this year despite a growing economy. It hopes to cut the deficit in half by 2025 with spending cuts that could easily turn out to be unrealistic. Pro-growth policies aren’t part of the Morena agenda, which favors heavy government spending and national corporate monopolies.

Mr. López Obrador is hoping that Ms. Sheinbaum wins with a big enough margin to carry Morena to two-thirds majorities in both legislative chambers. That would clear the way to amend the constitution and reverse the 2014 opening of Mexico’s energy markets, erode the independence of the Supreme Court and electoral authorities, and eliminate independent regulators. Morena now has simple majorities in both chambers and AMLO has used them to gradually change the Supreme Court.

High voter turnout would help Ms. Gálvez, who is trailing in most polls by double digits. AMLO’s government is using its media allies to claim the election is already over. But sampling bias and the potential of a large hidden vote could still produce a surprise. The future of Mexican democracy may depend on maintaining a check on AMLO’s designs

[Body-by-Guinness]

Fills in some blanks re the various, competing Mexican cartels:

SWJ El Centro Book Review – CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel

John P. Sullivan

CJNG Quick Guide
Chris Dalby, CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel. Virtual: World of Crime, 2024 [ISBN:  978-9083423913 paperback, 978-9083423906 eBook, 170 Pages]

The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), or Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of Mexico’s major criminal cartels. It is locked into a major contest for dominance of Mexico’s illicit economy with the Sinaloa Cartel (Cártel de Sinaloa). Indeed this competition is increasingly global and involves numerous smaller conflicts with other rival cartels and gangs in Mexico and beyond. Both the CJNG and CDS, Mexico’s largest criminal groups, exercise territorial control and criminal governance and effectively rule over large segments of Mexico’s populace, economy (markets), and spaces. This places the CJNG in direct confrontation with its criminal rivals and the state in the areas it controls or seeks to control. This contest for power and profit is often punctuated by violence. It is also colored by myth and misunderstanding of the nature of these contests,

Chris Dalby, a seasoned journalist, formerly with InSight Crime, has analyzed Mexico’s criminal landscape along with its crime wars and criminal insurgencies for many years. Now Director of World of Crime, a think tank based in the Netherlands with a global virtual remit, has published a resource guide capturing the salient aspects of the CJNG story. The guide, CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel, is built upon years of field work, research, and reportage.

Early Days

After a brief introduction, the text is divided into thirteen substantiative chapters followed by a list of “essential resources.” Each chapter describes a distinct aspect of the CJNG’s activities, from their economic ventures to their threats and a description of their geographic reach.

The first topical chapter, “The CJNG’s Origins,” looks at the foundation of the CJNG in the Milenio Cartel under Armando Valencia Cornelio, briefly recounting the early links to the so-called Guadalajara Cartel under Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and influence of Pablo Escobar and the Colombian Medellín Cartel. These early seeds set the stage for the rise of “El Mencho” or Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes the CJNG’s founder and current leader. This emergence is punctuated by the rise of “avocadonomics” or the boom in avocados as a cash crop that became integral to Michoacán’s economy and ripe for exploitation by the CJNG.

The next chapter, “The CJNG’s Many, Many Wars,” recounts criminal conflicts with a number of groups, including the Cárteles Unidos and La Familia Michoacana in Michoacán, the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas and Veracruz, the Mezcales in Coloma, the Cártel de Santa Rosa de Lima (CSRL) in Guanajuato, and the Zetas Vieja Escuela in Tamaulipas. This is followed by “The Matazetas,” which examines the story of a counterforce to the Zetas that many report as a part of the emergence of the CJNG. Yet, the true story is more nuanced and complicated.

The Cult of El Mencho

The next chapter details the emergence of “The Cult of El Mencho.” Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka “Mencho,” is the notorious leader of the CJNG.  El Mencho eschewed the mantle of social bandit, cultivated by Sinaloa kingpin El Chapo Guzmán, and “Cultivated an aura of fear, devotion and anonymity.”(p. 50) This section recounts Mencho’s early years, when he was connected to the Valencia family and the Milenio cartel; his time in the United States (both in California and in federal prison in Texas); and his return to Mexico where he became a cop, before he reconnected with the Valencia Family and the Milenio Cartel in time for the war with Los Zetas.

The Rise and Fall of the Cuinis and the Next Generation

The legacy of "Los Cuinis” is told in “The Rise and Fall of the Cuinis” which describes the symbiotic relationship between the CJNG and the Cuinis, led by Mencho’s brother-in-law known as “El Cuini.” This group, or faction, were dominated by the González Valencia family. Money laundering, funding expansion into the global methamphetamine trade were hallmarks of the Los Cuini era. After several notable arrests the Cuini power faded. The next chapter “The Next Generation of CJNG Leaders” assesses potential successors to “El Mencho” amid speculation that he is seriously ill and dying or already dead (his actual fate is unknown at the time of this book’s release and this review).

Money Laundering and Branding

“The CJNG’s Money laundering Empire” looks at the financial services component of the CJNG. From front businesses to real estate transaction, trade-based money laundering helps convert the profits from the global meth, fentanyl, and heroin trade into portable capital. The early rise of this business center to its connections to the Chinese shadow banking system and use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is briefly reviewed before turning to public affairs. “The CJNG’s Gift for Public Relations” examines the CJNG’s use of social media—including generating a fan base and associated trademark “purple devil” (😈) emoji—and propaganda are described emphasizing “narcoculture,” machismo, hyper-violence, battle images, and cults of personality to reinforce the CJNG brand.

Synthetic Pharma, Other Profit Centers, and Geospatial Reach

The next two chapters focus on the CJG trade in illicit pharma or drugs. “The CJNG and Methamphetamine” sets the stage with a description of the cartel’s innovation in producing its own product through a network of meth labs to form a power base. The global connections derived from this endeavor were the foundation for the next phase, fentanyl. “The CJNG and Fentanyl” describes the growth and current state of the fentanyl trade and its impact in Mexico. The next chapter, “How Else Does the CJNG Make Money?” Looks at the Avocado trade, Extortion, Fuel Theft (Huachicoleo), Illegal Fishing, Illegal Logging and Timber Trafficking, Migrant Smuggling, and Timeshare Fraud. The final two chapters” “Where is the CJNG in Mexico” and “The CJNG Across the Americas” briefly ok at the CJNG presence in each of Mexico’s states and Mexico City (CDMX) and the United States, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guatemala. The text ends with a short list of reference resources.

Assessing the Text

CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel is a quick read. While it is not a comprehensive account of the CJNG, an exhaustive investigative account, and in-depth ethnology or political economic assessment, it provides an accessible, synopsis of the CJNG’s rise, operational context, and geographic reach. While specialists may miss detailed accounts of social network analysis and conflict analysis, both specialists and generalists will find this an accessible and succinct overview of the CJNG’s major characteristics. Journalists and senior leaders seeking to prepare themselves to understand current events and more detailed research and operational analyses will likely find this a good primer or “essential A–Z” on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s background. The author states that this is the first of many potential World of Crime “quick guides” with future volumes on the Tren de Aragua an the Chapitos in preparation. I look forward to seeing those released as companions to this text.

Categories: El Centro
About the Author(s)

John P. Sullivan
Dr. John P. Sullivan was a career police officer. He is an honorably retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, specializing in emergency operations, transit policing, counterterrorism, and intelligence. He is currently an Instructor in the Safe Communities Institute (SCI) at the Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California. Sullivan received a lifetime achievement award from the National Fusion Center Association in November 2018 for his contributions to the national network of intelligence fusion centers. He completed the CREATE Executive Program in Counter-Terrorism at the University of Southern California and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the College of William and Mary, a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research, and a PhD from the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). His doctoral thesis was “Mexico’s Drug War: Cartels, Gangs, Sovereignty and the Network State.” He can be reached at jpsullivan@smallwarsjournal.com.

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/swj-el-centro-book-review-cjng-quick-guide-mexicos-deadliest-cartel

[Crafty_Dog]

Could Mexico’s Election Spring a Surprise?
AMLO’s ruling party is trying to demoralize supporters of the opposition candidate and convince them to stay home.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
May 26, 2024 2:36 pm ET


The “Pink Tide” demonstrations that swept Mexico on May 19 weren’t a popular cry for socialism, as the name might imply. Quite the opposite. The hundreds of thousands who turned out in urban plazas across the nation were part of a nonpartisan movement fighting to preserve the independence of the National Electoral Institute. The INE, as it is known, referees political campaigns and elections. The Mexico City government estimated the crowd in the capital’s main square at 95,000.

The citizen drive to support INE autonomy is pushback against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been trying to bring the electoral body under control of the executive and stifle its impartiality. The INE’s signature shade is pink. So movement organizers appropriated the color as a marketing tool. Of note is how those marches also turned into rallies for opposition presidential candidate Xochitl Gálvez, who will square off against Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate of Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party, on June 2.

Ms. Sheinbaum was handpicked by the president, who is known as AMLO, and is a symbol of continuity with his agenda. Her threats to use executive power to crush pluralism and grab control of the Supreme Court frighten Mexican democrats. If she succeeds, the country could revert to a one-party state, as it was during the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Ms. Gálvez is the undisputed underdog in this race. Since before the campaign officially began, Mr. López Obrador has been running up the fiscal deficit, using government programs to throw money at voters and the economy. He also has used his bully pulpit to campaign for Ms. Sheinbaum, in violation of electoral law.

To win, Ms. Gálvez needs voter turnout in the mid-60% range, which is why the government wants to paint a picture that the race is over and going to the polls is a waste of time for her supporters. Some polling companies, allegedly financed by Morena or its supporters, happily assist by producing household surveys that show the challenger 20 points behind with no chance.

Skepticism is in order. Even if pollsters don’t have bias, it’s important to keep in mind that while household surveys are traditionally a good measurement, today they are notoriously unreliable because the middle class generally refuses to participate.

Meantime, daily polls released by the polling company Massive Caller last week showed the two candidates in a statistical tie with around 12% undecided. Massive Caller uses a technique of random dialing that has been much more accurate than traditional polling methods in recent state elections. The polling company Mexico Elige, which uses social media, also has the race within the margin of error.

Debates over polling methodology remain unsettled. But another way to sniff out voter intention is to look at top priorities. In a national survey published by Mexico Elige earlier this month, nearly 27% of respondents said the No. 1 problem facing the country is public safety. The second most popular response to the question was corruption, and the third was violence. In fourth place was narcotics trafficking. Together these four issues, all dependent on the rule of law, made up 72% of responses. This suggests wide dissatisfaction with how the government has handled one of its most important roles and an appetite for change.

A lack of trust on the part of voters that pollsters will keep their responses confidential may also distort polling results. Mr. López Obrador remains personally popular. Going against him, or his intended successor, is politically incorrect in some quarters. Mexicans who receive subsidies from the government are likely to be more fearful than others that by expressing an intention to vote for Ms. Sheinbaum’s rival, they could get cross-ways with the local Morena chieftain and lose their benefits. A significant shy vote that turns out on election day could be part of a Gálvez surprise.

In 2018, when Mr. López Obrador won with 53% of the vote, low turnout played a big role in his victory. He was helped by the split in the opposition vote between center-right candidate Ricardo Anaya from the National Action Party and the PRI candidate, Jose Antonio Meade. But when the incumbent PRI government threw mud at Mr. Anaya late in the race, alleging that he was corrupt, voters became discouraged. In many places in northern Mexico, which would have benefited from Mr. Anaya’s agenda of free trade and the rule of law, turnout hovered in the low 50% range. A rerun of voter malaise, this time because Ms. Gálvez is given up as a lost cause, would help Ms. Sheinbaum.

That’s what happened in the race for governor in the very important state of Mexico last year. Poll aggregators showed a 15-percentage-point lead for the Morena candidate, suggesting a blowout. Yet Morena won by only 8, sparking speculation that the overly grim forecast had pushed down participation (49%) and created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If that psychology prevails in the presidential race, and voter turnout is low, it will be good for Ms. Sheinbaum and Morena. But not so good for Mexico.

[ccp]

" Can she save the country from cartel violence? "

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ar-BB1no63f

My short answer is NO.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mexico Ruling Party’s Election Sweep Spooks Markets
Peso tumbles as result paves way for constitutional overhauls that opponents say risk weakening Mexico’s democracy
By
David Luhnow
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José de Córdoba
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Anthony Harrup
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Updated June 3, 2024 3:49 pm ET





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Mexico’s ruling party swept the elections on Sunday, raising concerns that the nationalist movement could weaken the country’s democracy and have an increased role in the economy. Photo: Raquel Cunha/Reuters

MEXICO CITY—The wide margin of victory by Mexico’s ruling party sparked concerns Monday that the nationalist movement now has the power to push through constitutional changes that opponents say risk weakening the country’s democracy while raising the role of the state in the economy.

The Mexican peso slid more than 4% on Monday to 17.72 against the dollar, its weakest level since November. The currency is one of the most widely traded in emerging markets and acts as a barometer of how investors view the country’s economic health. The stock market’s benchmark IPC index fell 6%, its biggest percentage drop since March 2020, the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.

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The peso began its retreat as results from the election showed the ruling Morena party winning at least a two-thirds majority in the lower house—easing its ability to push through constitutional overhauls without opposition support.

The declines of the currency and the stock market provide “evidence of fear about Mexico and possible capital outflows,” said Gabriela Siller, head of analysis at Mexico’s Banco Base, a local bank.

The scale of the ruling party’s electoral victory on Sunday was a surprise in Mexico—a major U.S. economic partner and the top source of imports to the U.S.—but also a source of illegal immigration and drugs.

An election widely seen as a referendum on outgoing leader President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s policies has suddenly become an unexpected opportunity to pass a set of proposed constitutional changes that would be the biggest overhaul to Mexico’s political system since it became a democracy in 2000.

The proposed initiatives include allowing for the direct election of judges, slimming down congress, and eliminating the autonomous election agency. It would also boost the government’s role in the energy sector.

Mexico’s ruling party could fall a few seats short of the two-thirds threshold in the senate, but most analysts said it would come close enough to make it relatively easy to pass its agenda. The changes risk concentrating power in the ruling party, which will already be stronger from its resounding win, analysts say.

“We’re now firmly in the territory of one-party rule in Mexico,” said Duncan Wood, a senior adviser to the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “Not just the presidency and Congress, but across the country. It’s an absolute tidal wave.”

López Obrador and many others in Morena have argued that the proposed changes won’t hurt Mexico’s democracy but will improve how it works. The president has long accused judges, for instance, of responding to the interests of wealthy business leaders, and says giving people the power to vote for judges will make them more accountable.


President Andrés Manuel López Obrador watched the election results being announced. PHOTO: MEXICO PRESIDENCY/REUTERS
After her big win, ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum sought to address concerns that such a substantial victory by one party would damage the country’s democracy. “We are democrats and out of conviction would never be an authoritarian or repressive government,” she told a cheering crowd in central Mexico City. She vowed to respect private investment, and keep fiscal discipline and central bank independence.

Sheinbaum, who will be Mexico’s first female and Jewish president and won nearly 60% of the vote, has the strongest mandate of any recent Mexican leader. Her margin of roughly 30 points over her nearest rival would be the largest in a presidential vote since the 1982 election, when Mexico still was a single-party state. Pre-election polls gave her a 20-point lead.

The ruling Movement of National Regeneration, known as Morena, won seven of nine gubernatorial elections, including in the capital, Mexico City, and 253 of Mexico’s 300 directly elected congressional districts.

The deep victory raised a prospect that had largely been dismissed before the vote: That López Obrador, who is legally barred from reelection, can pass his agenda before stepping down in October.

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In the past few years, opposition lawmakers and the Supreme Court have blocked most of López Obrador’s deeper changes, frustrating the president, who blames Mexican elites for barring overhauls that he said would help the country’s poor.


The Mexican currency began its slide as results indicated a substantial majority for the ruling Morena party. PHOTO: JEOFFREY GUILLEMARD/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Now, the popular leader may get his chance. López Obrador will still be in power for just over a month after the new Congress takes office in late August, giving him a window to pass the changes that had been stalled or blocked. He submitted the initiatives to Congress earlier this year, but legislators haven’t voted on the proposals because it seemed unlikely they would clear opposition objections. That appears set to change.

“September will be the most revolutionary month that Mexico has experienced in this century,” said Antonio Ocaranza, a Mexican political analyst. “López Obrador will still be president and he’ll have a Congress that owes him their jobs.” If López Obrador doesn’t get all of his initiatives passed, Sheinbaum may pass them after she takes power, he said.

At a Monday morning press conference, López Obrador said he would confer with Sheinbaum about pushing forward with his proposed constitutional changes in September when the new legislators are seated. He said he didn’t want to impose anything on the president-elect.

“I do believe that the the issue of judicial reform should be introduced, because it’s not possible to have a judicial power that isn’t at the service of the people, that is, as it’s widely known, at the service of a minority, and at times, in the service of white-collar organized crime,” he said.

Sunday’s lopsided victory reflected resounding support for López Obrador, a nationalist who won power in 2018 on an anticorruption platform. The former Mexico City mayor slimmed down the federal bureaucracy and spent the money on cash handouts for the poor, making him enormously popular. Pollster Morning Consult currently has the politician tied in second place as most popular president in the world, behind India’s Narendra Modi and level with Argentina’s Javier Millei.

There was a “big disconnect between elite narrative and the reality on the ground in Mexico,” said Ernesto Revilla, chief Latin America economist at Citi. Polarized politics and fragmented information sources meant that many analysts “underestimated the extent of support for the populist regime” as the López Obrador administration reduced poverty and inequality and increased cash transfers and real wages, making Morena “indomitable in this election,” Revilla said.


A factory in Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico. PHOTO: EYEPIX/ZUMA PRESS
While the Mexican nationalist built his career by railing at Mexican elites and vowing a deep transformation of the country on behalf of the poor, many of the more dire predictions at the outset of his presidency didn’t come to pass. He kept Mexico’s economy open to trade and government finances on a fairly stable footing, giving a boost to the peso. Mexico’s economy has also posted relatively strong growth the past two years and kept its investment-grade ratings.

But the question all along is what would happen if López Obrador, or the party he created, had the power to reshape the country along the lines it wants—which most analysts say looks more like the single-party state of the former ruling PRI party in the 20th century, with an all-powerful president and a bigger role for the state in the economy. López Obrador began his political career in the nationalist PRI, splitting from it in 1988.

“Morena has now become the new incarnation of the PRI,” said Luis de la Calle, a Mexico City consultant and former negotiator of the original free-trade treaty between the U.S, Canada and Mexico.

The constitutional changes could have far-reaching consequences for Mexico’s democracy. They would replace the autonomous election agency, overhaul the judicial branch by allowing a popular vote for judges, including those for the Supreme Court, eliminate autonomous regulators for certain industries such as telecommunications and transfer their functions to government ministries, and undo the changes in the electricity industry that promoted private power generation, giving the state utility a bigger role. They would also reduce the number of members in Mexico’s lower and upper houses and cut funding of political parties.


President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he intends to retire from political life once he steps down from the presidency at the end of September. PHOTO: ISAAC ESQUIVEL/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Some bills are perceived as leading to institutional erosion and weakening the current checks and balances; and several are not viewed as market friendly,” said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs. “With full control of the House, and for practical purposes likely the Senate as well, the probability that a significant part of this broad agenda is approved increased significantly.”

Ramos said the ruling party would have a clear two-thirds majority in the lower house, and be very close to one in the Senate—close enough to easily clinch a few votes or defections. “For all practical purposes, they have a two-thirds majority in both houses,” he said.

Sheinbaum has been a loyal acolyte of the president. She has enough of a mandate to try to prevent some of López Obrador’s more controversial changes even before she takes power, but it remains to be seen whether she will, said the Wilson Center’s Wood.

At the press conference on Monday, López Obrador reiterated his intention not to engage in politics once he steps down from the presidency at the end of September. But despite his promise to retire from political life, some analysts say that Sheinbaum would have a difficult time asserting herself over the popular current leader, moving to do so only gradually.

[Crafty_Dog]

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Mexico Hands More Power to the Left
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena party win big. The peso and stock market fell in response.
By
The Editorial Board
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June 3, 2024 5:55 pm ET




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Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum PHOTO: HECTOR VIVAS/GETTY IMAGES
Who says democratic landslides aren’t possible anymore? Mexico on Sunday delivered one for the ruling left-wing Morena party and its presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum. The question is whether this democratic sweep will create an opening for anti-democratic constitutional changes.

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Ms. Sheinbaum is a protégé of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Mexican presidents can’t run for re-election, but AMLO remains popular. Real wages have grown and the peso has strengthened as the country has become a mecca for manufacturing aimed at the North American market. AMLO has also spent lavishly on entitlements for the poor and middle class.

With 99% of the vote counted, the former mayor of Mexico City had won 60% against former National Action Party senator Xochitl Gálvez with 28%. The sweeping victory also appears to have given Morena close to two-thirds majorities in the legislature.

This means Morena has the votes to pass AMLO’s constitutional amendments designed to consolidate the party’s power at the Supreme Court and eliminate independent regulatory bodies. Because the new Congress takes its seats a month before AMLO leaves office on Oct. 1, he could push for passage before the end of his term. That prospect explains the peso’s 4% decline on Monday, while the Mexican stock market was down some 5.7%.

Markets will be looking to see which Claudia Sheinbaum emerges in office—the ideologue or a more pragmatic deal-maker. Mr. López Obrador and Ms. Sheinbaum are left-wing populists who want to put the state at the center of the economy. She has a doctorate in energy engineering, and during the early 1990s lived in the San Francisco area.

In her acceptance speech, Ms. Sheinbaum took a conciliatory tone, promising to “respect business freedom and facilitate with honesty private investment, national and foreign.” While charting her own course, Ms. Sheinbaum will face problems left behind by AMLO. The public-health system is broke and there’s a large fiscal deficit. Pemex, the state-owned oil company, has some $103 billion in debt outstanding and owes suppliers more than $20 billion.

Ms. Sheinbaum has promised to put the poor first, but that means Mexico’s economy will need to keep growing. Her challenge will be to square her socialist bona fides, and her history of climate activism on the United Nations climate panel, with policies that attract foreign capital to expand prosperity.

An early test will be whether Ms. Sheinbaum continues AMLO’s campaign to have government control electricity generation and oil exploration. Shutting out private investors violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the revised free-trade pact signed in 2018. President Biden has failed to enforce the new agreement’s energy chapter, but a second Trump Administration probably would.

She will also have to address the collapse of internal security. Cartels control large parts of the country, and extortion is routine. Human smugglers run the caravans that bring migrants by the millions to the U.S. border. Recovering the authority of the state won’t be easy. But a closer relationship with U.S. law enforcement could help.

The U.S. has a huge stake in a stable, prospering Mexico that continues to expand its middle class. The drug trade won’t subside as long as demand in the U.S. stays high, but neither country can afford to let trans-national cartels dominate the border and murder with impunity. Americans wish the new President well for the sake of her country and our own.

[Crafty_Dog]

third

Mexico After AMLO: A One-Party State?
For six years, other institutions have limited the socialist president’s damage.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
June 2, 2024 1:00 pm ET



Claudia Sheinbaum campaigns for the Mexican presidency in Mexico City, Mexico, May 29. PHOTO: CARLOS TISCHLER/ZUMA PRESS
Mexicans vote in presidential and legislative elections Sunday. Eight Mexican states, plus Mexico City, hold gubernatorial contests. We may not know the results until late in the evening. But it isn’t too early to consider the economic and political challenges the nation will face under a new federal government.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s successor will inherit a stable economy where firms are profitable and manufacturing is expanding. Mexico has a rising middle class and its enviable demographics, with a median age of 30, are a plus. A nearshoring trend and the wide interest-rate spread between the dollar and the peso have helped strengthen the Mexican currency to levels not seen in a decade.

But warning lights are also flashing. Among the biggest challenges is a weak rule of law. Cartel terror, extortion and human trafficking have grown worse during Mr. López Obrador’s government, and public trust in institutions, including the military, has deteriorated. Political violence is also on the rise. The new president will be under pressure to confront criminality. It could get bloody.

Claudia Sheinbaum, a former head of the Mexico City government and a member of Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party, is the favorite to become the next president. Her victory would suggest further deepening of AMLO’s vision for the country. Here it’s important to note that Mexico’s economic gains in the past six years have come despite AMLO, not because of him. He opposes free-market economics. During his presidency he’s been beavering away at what he calls the “fourth transformation,” which would give the Mexican state a large role in the economy and consolidate power in the executive. Think the heyday of the Institutional Revolutionary Party 50 years ago.

That Mr. López Obrador wasn’t able to return Mexico to the authoritarianism of the 1970s is a credit to competing institutions. The Supreme Court and the National Electoral Institute defended pluralism and blocked AMLO’s most egregious attempts to grab power. It’s also a credit to those who opened the economy. He could hardly afford to strangle democratic capitalism before he changed the rules of the game. His surrogate would have to win the next election.

The socialist Ms. Sheinbaum, if she wins, is expected to champion the constitutional reforms that AMLO has articulated as necessary to achieve his back-to-the-future Mexico. These include the direct election of Supreme Court justices, the end of proportional representation for congressional seats, and the elimination of the Federal Economic Competition Commission and the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Protection of Personal Information.

READ MORE THE AMERICAS
Could Mexico’s Election Spring a Surprise?May 26, 2024
Milei’s Supreme Court MisstepMay 19, 2024
A President Sheinbaum would need two-third majorities in both chambers to pass those amendments, which means that there’s a lot at stake in the congressional races. If Morena gets close to the number of seats it needs, Ms. Sheinbaum might try to negotiate with another party for the rest of the votes.

The reforms would be bad for Mexico, although in the short run things might not change much. The frog would boil slowly.

Opposition candidate Xochitl Gálvez ran against dismantling institutional checks and balances. If she wins, she has promised to govern with republican values. If she loses but makes it a close race, it will be more difficult for Morena to create a one-party state.

During the campaign both candidates made entitlement promises that will be a drag on growth. But the new president and Congress won’t have it easy because Mr. López Obrador, with Morena coalition majorities in Congress, ran up spending ahead of the election. Total government spending will be 27% of gross domestic product this year, the highest since President José López Portillo (1976-82). AMLO’s treasury says there will be a 5.9% fiscal deficit, which would be the largest since 1990, the earliest year for which the treasury provides the data. The treasury forecasts a return to a 3% fiscal deficit in 2025 but that depends on a combination of austerity and growth. The new president will have to tighten belts to reverse the worsening trend.

Last month Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy program at the Baker Institute, tweeted that Mr. López Obrador’s Dos Bocas refinery project “will go down in the annals of the oil industry as one of the most disastrous investment decisions in history. The cost is already $17 billion, and it is not yet finished.” Completion of the tourist train on the Yucatán Peninsula is also delayed, and its $28 billion price tag is nearly four times its original budget.

Electricity shortages caused by AMLO’s decision to block new private investment in power could put a damper on the nearshoring boom. Despite its geographical advantage, Mexico won’t be a good destination for capital without cheap, plentiful energy.

The good news is that the new president inherits a democratic republic with lots of potential. The open question is whether Mexicans can keep it.

[Crafty_Dog]

Fourth

Morena Sweeps Mexico's General Election, Portending Policy Continuity and Possible Constitutional Reforms
8 MIN READJun 3, 2024 | 21:40 GMT





Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum gives a speech after the first results released by the election authorities show that she is leading the polls by a wide margin on June 3, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico.

Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum gives a speech after the first results released by the election authorities show that she is leading the polls by a wide margin on June 3, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico.
(Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

In Mexico, the ruling Morena party's victories in the presidential and legislative elections set the stage for policy continuity focused on poverty reduction and the expansion of government control over energy. Should Morena also achieve a qualified majority in both legislative chambers, the party could pass controversial constitutional reforms that decrease government checks and balances, while increasing corruption risks for businesses. On June 2, Mexico's National Electoral Institute (INE) announced that the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum won Mexico's presidential election with 58%-60% of the vote. Meanwhile, Xochitl Galvez of the opposition National Action Party received approximately 26% of the vote, while Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizens' Movement party received approximately 10% of the vote. Both Galvez and Maynez have conceded defeat. Morena also retained its absolute majority in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, alongside the allied Labor Party and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, though it is unclear whether the Morena bloc achieved the qualified (two-thirds) majority required to pass constitutional reforms without needing votes from the opposition. Sheinbaum, who will be Mexico's first female president, is set to take office on Oct. 1 for a single six-year term (Mexico's Constitution does not allow presidents to run for re-election). The new legislative session will begin one month earlier on Sept. 1.

President-elect Sheinbaum is a climate scientist and was formerly the head of the Mexico City government from 2018 to 2023. She is a close ally of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who supported her campaign.

Compared with other Mexican parties, Morena is a relatively young political party, with Lopez Obrador founding the party in 2011 after leaving the Party of the Democratic Revolution. Morena has been Mexico's ruling party since Lopez Obrador won the 2018 presidential election with 53% of the vote, lower than Sheinbaum.

A qualified majority requires 334 out of 500 legislators in the Chamber of Deputies and 86 out of the 128 legislators in the Senate. Preliminary results indicate that Morena is within 10 seats of achieving qualified majorities in both houses.

Morena's victory highlights widespread approval for Lopez Obrador's policies, despite tensions between him and electoral institutions and the judicial system, as well as shortcomings in his anti-crime policies. The electoral success of Sheinbaum, who modeled much of her campaign on Lopez Obrador's policies and the wider Morena party, demonstrates that Lopez Obrador and his agenda retain high popularity at the end of his six-year term. This popularity is partially the result of broader popular frustration with Mexico's formerly dominant political parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the National Action Party, but is also due to the success of the Lopez Obrador administration's "Fourth Transformation" policies aimed at reducing poverty and economic inequality by expanding social programs and growing the Mexican economy. Lopez Obrador has been able to claim success in some parts of his policy platform, with the expansion of social programs in recent years, as well as the acceleration of nearshoring trends that have increased U.S.-Mexico trade. Still, Lopez Obrador's term has not been without controversy. His repeated efforts to eliminate or downsize the INE and recurrent political disputes with the Supreme Court over the body's rejection of some of his policies fueled accusations that he was attempting to weaken Mexico's democracy. He has also faced criticism for his "hugs not bullets" anti-crime policy, which seeks to combat the underlying drivers of crime (particularly poverty), with less of a focus on counter-crime operations targeting drug cartel leadership, as was common under previous Mexican administrations. Though Mexico's homicide rate has dropped slightly since Lopez Obrador took office, many attribute the persisting high levels of organized crime in the country to this policy. Opposition to Lopez Obrador has repeatedly triggered mass protests, with opposition groups organizing multiple demonstrations with participation in the tens of thousands in the first months of 2024.

Lopez Obrador's approval ratings peaked at 81% in early 2019 after taking office in December 2018. While his approval ratings have since dropped, they have remained around 66%, including in recent months.

Mexico's National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (an independent federal institution) reported in 2023 that its preferred measurement for the country's poverty rate fell 5.6% from 2018 to 2022, with over 5 million people lifted out of poverty.
In 2023, Mexico reported an official homicide rate of 23.3 per 100,000 people, a drop from 25.8 per 100,000 people in 2018. However, disappearances — which are often not counted in these statistics — have increased, meaning the homicide rate is almost certainly a significant undercount. Furthermore, while some parts of the country experience low crime rates, some areas experience extreme levels of violence between rival cartels, including the Pacific coast state of Colima, which has reported homicide rates of over 100 per 100,000 people in the last year.

As president, Sheinbaum will largely maintain Lopez Obrador's policies, creating significant political continuity that will provide opportunities for companies expanding operations in the country, though her agenda may lead to some energy availability shortfalls and increased cartel violence. Sheinbaum's presidential victory and Morena's absolute legislative majority portends a continuation of many of the Lopez Obrador administration's policies, including a further expansion of social programs (such as free education, pensions and aid for impoverished communities), as the Mexican government continues to try to reduce the country's still-high rates of poverty and economic inequality. This will create policy stability for organizations considering Mexico for nearshoring, and such policies should continue to improve the development of human capital over time. Sheinbaum will also likely implement some tax incentives to continue to support nearshoring trends, particularly for areas of southern Mexico. Sheinbaum will expand electricity generation capacity while keeping the sector largely under government control, though she will almost certainly increase focus on renewable energy compared with Lopez Obrador, further increasing the country's investment attractiveness. For businesses, government control of electricity and fuel subsidies should prevent operating costs from increasing significantly. However, private investment in the sectors will decrease, potentially leading to a drop in generation capacity that would risk power outages. Amid increasing popular pressure for greater government efforts to combat crime, Sheinbaum will likely slightly deviate from Lopez Obrador, with increased operations targeting high-ranking cartel members. In the near term, this will risk triggering increased incidents of retaliatory violence that create safety threats, but this policy may ultimately help lower violence in states experiencing particularly severe inter-cartel conflict, including Colima and Guanajuato.

Sheinbaum has promised to expand investment in renewable energy and implement policies intended to decrease environmental damage, including stopping gas flaring and imposing stricter emissions standards. However, she has also promised to maintain support for state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, more commonly known as Pemex.

Throughout May 2024, an increase in electricity demand due to an unseasonable heat wave led to power outages in 20 of 32 Mexican states.

Should former U.S. President Donald Trump return to the White House in 2025, he would be highly likely to threaten tariffs on at least some Mexican exports to the United States. Negotiations for the automatic renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in July 2026 will likely be a particular flashpoint for regional trade tensions. Moreover, Trump's focus on curbing migration could also lead him to threaten to close the border if Mexico does not take more aggressive measures to stop migrants from moving north.

If Morena achieves a qualified majority in both legislative chambers, the party could pursue multiple constitutional changes that undermine Mexico's checks and balances and increase corruption risks for businesses. Morena needs a qualified majority to pass a package of constitutional reforms Lopez Obrador submitted in February. If the party does receive a two-thirds majority in both chambers, Lopez Obrador will be able to pass the reforms during the month between the start of the new legislative session on Sept. 1 and the end of his presidency on Oct. 1. However, a majority of states would still need to approve the package before their final implementation, which could take longer than a month. Among other things, the package of 18 reforms would eliminate several government bodies; while this policy would reduce some bureaucratic challenges and free up some government funds, it would also decrease government checks and balances and independent oversight, a move that could contribute to corruption risks in the long term.

 Other reforms would fold the National Guard into the military, which is controversial due to repeated incidents of military abuses over recent decades, and replace the INE with a smaller electoral body to which officials are democratically elected, which critics argue would undermine Mexico's democracy by making electoral authorities less independent. Even if Morena does not achieve the qualified majority, Lopez Obrador will likely push for most of the reforms in hopes that popular demand will successfully pressure some opposition politicians to vote for them. However, the government would likely be unable to pass the majority of the package in this scenario. If Lopez Obrador is unable to pass the reforms before his term ends, Sheinbaum will likely continue to push for most of the policies after she takes office, though she may abandon some of the particularly controversial policies such as the INE reform.

[Crafty_Dog]

June 5, 2024
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What the June 2 Elections Say About Mexico
Results suggest the country is growing more dynamic and responsive to voters.
By: Allison Fedirka
“The most boring election in Mexican history.” That’s how a prominent Mexican political activist described the country’s June 2 elections. Judging by the U.S. media reaction, however, the elections were anything but. Nearly 20,000 political offices were up for grabs, and there was extensive coverage of electoral violence and corruption in the lead-up to the vote. And, of course, the two leading candidates were women, so it was certain that Mexico would elect its first-ever female president. Other Latin American countries followed the events in Mexico closely, given its prominent role in the region, so the media fanfare throughout the Americas is reason enough to reflect on the political atmosphere in Mexico.

That the election was “boring” isn’t entirely without merit. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory was all but presumptive. Though the size of her projected lead varied from one polling agency to another, Sheinbaum consistently outperformed her nearest competitor, Xochitl Galvez, by about 15 points for the past six months.

However, the composition of the opposition parties and their candidates points to a dynamic moment in Mexican politics. One party, the PRI, dominated Mexican politics for much of the 20th century. Its main political rival was PAN, created in 1939. The PRI lost power in the 2000 presidential election to PAN candidate Vicente Fox. For the next 20 years, the office passed between these two parties. But then Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a member of the PRD-offshoot party known as Morena, won the presidency in 2018, signaling that Mexico may not be an absolute two-party state. (Sheinbaum is also a member of Morena.) The results from June 2 have only reinforced as much. The leading opposition candidate, Galvez, represented an alliance of Mexico’s three legacy parties (the aforementioned PRI, PAN and PRD) that reflects new lines of interest being drawn across the country. Moreover, presidential candidate Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizens’ Movement party received 10 percent of the popular vote without any affiliation to another party. His modest performance suggests the nascent emergence of yet another political force in the country.

Also interesting is how public concern over reliable election results has begun to influence electoral practices. Unlike in the United States, where exit polls and preliminary results are disseminated on a rolling basis well before the entire country finishes voting, Mexico’s electoral administrator, the INE, does not release results until after all the polling stations in the country have closed. Anyone who closely follows politics in the country can quote the election-day timeline like clockwork: Polls close at 6 p.m., initial estimates come out at 8 p.m., initial victory is declared around 10 p.m. Political parties, aware of the concerns this process raises, have responded in kind. Pro-Morena political analysts noted that the presence of foreign observers should validate results and assuage concerns of election fraud – perhaps to hedge against accusations of malfeasance, which their opposition counterparts accused Morena of long before June 2. And though Galvez has vowed to contest the results, they are extremely unlikely to be overturned.

Those results themselves have raised questions in some circles over how Sheinbaum will govern. It’s widely known that she is a political protege of Lopez Obrador, and there are concerns that he will lead from behind the scenes. That may seem like a silly concern; Sheinbaum has worked her way up the political ranks to become president, and people who do that tend not to do so only to defer to others. However, appearances matter in politics and can contribute strongly to the perception of legitimacy around a leader. Being seen as an extension of the previous president would undermine the new leader’s power.

Institutionally, the new government will enjoy stronger political support across the country than the previous administration. The governing Morena party won the governorship in 23 of 31 states as well as Mexico City. The party and its alliance members are poised to hold a majority in both the upper and lower houses of parliament. The exact number of seats per party is still being calculated, but the governing coalition stands to win a minimum of 346 seats in the lower house – well above the 334 seats necessary for a supermajority – and is projected to win anywhere from 76 to 88 seats in the upper house. (It needs 85 for a supermajority.) If it wins a supermajority in both houses, the government will have enough influence to change the constitution, if it so chooses.

Preliminary Results for Mexico's Senate & House

(click to enlarge)

Impressive as they are, Morena’s gains raise an existential question for Mexico. Some of the party’s more philosophical supporters argue that the divide between northern and southern Mexico is disappearing.

Party Affiliation of New State Governors in Mexico, 2024

(click to enlarge)

The argument suggests that government-backed projects like the Dos Bocas refinery and Mayan Train project have laid the groundwork for further development in the south that would put the historically poorer regions closer to the north. Even if that were true, it would take longer than a single six-year presidential term, but the possibility of changes of that magnitude being underway isn’t something to ignore because it would fundamentally change how Mexico can operate as a country and, by extension, how it interacts with the rest of the world.

That raises the obvious question of how the new government will affect North America, if at all. Some believe that it risks alienating the United States. But Sheinbaum has indicated that she understands that the U.S.-Mexican relationship is a marriage where divorce is not an option. Many of her key advisers in international affairs have strong backgrounds in trade, have worked in international organizations like the United Nations, and have strong affiliations with moderate U.S. think tanks, all of which suggest an inclination toward or compatibility with working with the U.S.

While it may not change much in the United Stattes, Sheinbaum’s administration may be more effective in Central America. Migration, for example, remains just as big a political issue in Mexico as it is in the U.S., albeit for different reasons. There is a strong need and political will to alleviate the underlying pressures that lead to Central American migration.

The Mexican political system appears to be growing more dynamic and responsive to new electoral concerns and voices throughout the population. And the new government finds itself in a position where it may be able to lay the groundwork for dramatically reshaping Mexico. We can’t say whether it will succeed but can say it won’t be boring.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRaJldFTJ1Y

[Crafty_Dog]

(1) GOSAR: CARTELS ARE A NATIONAL PANDEMIC FUELED BY BORDER CRISIS: During a House Resources Committee hearing, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said cartels “moved from a southern border nuisance to a nationwide pandemic.”

“We have a war going on U.S. soil,” and cartels are taking advantage of a “jurisdictional loophole” while the U.S. Attorney is not taking action on criminal complaints, Fort Belknap Police Chief Joshua Roberge said.

According to former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Stacy Zinn, fentanyl was the linchpin for cartels on reservations to go from small-scale to overt activity.

Why It Matters: Overt cartel activity, facilitated by fentanyl smuggling and trade, is a major domestic disruption and a boon to China’s strategy to destabilize the United States. The cartels are using tribal lands as bases of operation due to legal loopholes that experts say prevent effective enforcement, and when arrested and deported, they can cross the disrupted southern border using a new identity.

Chinese nationals, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are intimately involved with cartel operations through both money laundering and facilitating the fentanyl trade. The CCP is likely facilitating this domestic disruption through ties to Chinese criminal organizations. – R.C.

[ccp]

yes first Jew
yes first one with vagina
yes PhD physics
yes climate change fanatic   
yes left wing 

yes also "white"

like nearly all if not all Mexican Presidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heads_of_state_of_Mexico

Racism in Mexico:

According to this author more than here:

https://laist.com/news/essays/the-pigmentocracy-problem-a-brown-mexicano-gets-real-about-the-color-hierarchy

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-arrests-mexican-drug-lord-el-mayo-and-el-chapo-s-son-in-texas/ar-BB1qG0L2?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=1ee81837cb234e8c8c1d5ca877165229&ei=18

[Crafty_Dog]

(6) REPORT: MEXICO TO IMPORT OIL BY 2030: Continued declines in Mexico’s crude oil output, which is now at a four-decade low, may force the country to import crude oil by 2030, according to energy ministry projections.

Why It Matters: Pemex, Mexico’s nationalized oil company, is notoriously corrupt, and its pipelines routinely fall victim to illegal tapping by organized crime rings who resell the fuel. Mexico’s president-elect is an environmentalist facing a harsh reality: about 20% of government revenues come from Pemex, so a deteriorating oil sector is another strategic problem for economic stability. – M.S.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-drug-cartel-drone-attacks-soldiers-killed-572b39c73c030bef20257517d1c4a91d

[Crafty_Dog]

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/mexico/2024-08-19/truth-commission-documents-25-years-state-violence-during-mexican-dirty-war?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b8ec8cc1-bdba-4e64-874f-548c7d50ce9c

[Crafty_Dog]

September 24, 2024
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Mexico’s Audacious Judicial Overhaul
Among the many concerns, the reforms endanger the renewal in 2026 of the USMCA trade pact.
By: Allison Fedirka

Just weeks away from leaving office, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ushered legacy-defining judicial reforms through Congress, sparking concern among opponents and international businesses. Mexican governments have restructured the court system several times over the past 30 years, but institutional weaknesses have persisted. Whether the latest reforms will do what they’re intended to do remains an open question, but the deep-rooted problems that undermine public confidence in the courts are likely to endure.

Mexico’s current judicial system took shape in the mid-1990s, when the longstanding political dominance of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was waning. The PRI government empowered the Supreme Court to act as a check on the other branches through judicial review and created the Federal Judiciary Council to ensure internal accountability. Proponents said the changes institutionalized Mexico’s transition to a true multiparty democracy and dismantled PRI’s web of control, while critics argued they shielded PRI from its opponents’ growing use of judicial reviews to challenge its rule.

Another round of reform – this time focused on the criminal justice system – came in 2008, amid escalating violence driven by the government’s crackdown on drug cartels. Intended to improve transparency and fairness, the changes gave defendants more rights, imposed stricter rules on evidence collection and presentation, curbed prosecutorial power, and equipped courtrooms with audio and visual recording equipment. Government surveys of inmates show that the reforms improved judges’ behavior, with judges present and attentive 70 percent of the time, up from 24 percent before the changes. Despite these modest improvements, the public remained deeply distrustful of the judicial system, citing insecurity and impunity as serious concerns.

Ranking of Mexican Institutions by Level of Perceived Corruption

(click to enlarge)

The overhaul championed by AMLO, as Lopez Obrador is known, concentrates on improving accountability for individual judges. The best-known measure introduces the direct election of judges: 11 Supreme Court justices, 1,635 federal judges and 5,700 more at the state and local levels. Elections will be staggered; between a quarter and one-half of judges will be up for election in June 2025, with the rest decided in 2027. The Mexican legislature, president and judicial officials will have equal say in nominating candidates, who need only a law degree and five years’ experience to qualify – down from 10 years (except for the Supreme Court, where a decade remains the minimum requirement).

Supporters argue that these reforms will restore public confidence in judges by reducing conflicts of interest and encouraging a more diverse judiciary. They also argue that public elections will allow voters to scrutinize candidates, balancing power between the judiciary and the electorate. Critics, however, warn that the reforms could lead to unqualified candidates winning office, politicize the judiciary, and invite political parties and organized crime to deploy funds to sway elections.

The reforms carry significant political and economic implications. AMLO’s Morena party already dominates Mexican politics, holding 24 of 31 state governorships and more than 40 percent of seats in both the lower house and Senate. Add its allies from the Labor and Green parties and Morena commands a strong majority. This dominance has sparked fears among opposition and business figures that Morena could extend its control into the judiciary, recalling PRI’s 70-year monopoly of Mexican politics.

The implications for the economy could be severe. Critics worry that the new judiciary, reflecting the politics of Morena, could favor protectionist policies and adopt a more nationalistic regulatory approach. The reforms pave the way for changes to regulatory bodies overseeing economic competition, telecommunications, and oil and gas, potentially undermining Mexico’s commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Other opponents say the reforms could undermine labor, environmental and trade standards required by the agreement or jeopardize dispute resolution procedures involving judges. The timing is critical, as USMCA is up for review in July 2026.

The connection between insecurity, corruption and politics in Mexico is widely recognized. Only about 10 percent of crimes are reported, and most go unresolved. Extortion is common, accounting for some 16 percent of all crimes. Roughly two-thirds of Mexicans believe their judges are corrupt, a level of distrust that contributes to the public’s underreporting of crime, and yet, critics point out, AMLO’s reforms fail to address the impunity plaguing the legal system. International perceptions of Mexico’s judiciary are similarly poor.

Mexico | Crime Reporting and Investigation

(click to enlarge)

Perception of Corruption and Reporting Corrupt Acts

(click to enlarge)

By focusing on only one aspect of the judiciary without tackling systemic issues like corruption and impunity, the reforms are unlikely to improve the country's image or its judicial operations. But they will strengthen fears over Mexico’s possible reversion to one-party rule. And the widespread backlash will likely weaken the Mexican government’s negotiating position in future talks with the U.S., Canada and other foreign governments.

[Crafty_Dog]

(4) NEXT PRESIDENT TO DEAL WITH MEXICAN “TRANSFORMATION”: Mexico’s President-Election Claudia Sheinbaum is scheduled to be inaugurated next week and continue President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) socialist “Fourth Transformation” of the country.

One former foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, said that Sheinbaum is ready to reverse decades of Westernization and closer ties with the United States. “López Obrador and the legacy he’s leaving her [Sheinbaum] move in the opposite direction,” he said.

Mexico continues to host figures like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and donate oil and money to Cuba. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to Sheinbaum’s inauguration. Sheinbaum also disinvited Spain from attending her inauguration after the Spanish King refused to apologize for the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Sheinbaum said that Mexico-Spain relations “would benefit from a renewed perspective” following an official apology.
Why It Matters: Mexico moved to the top U.S. trade partner this year, and has become strategically important to U.S. national security due to the shared border, which gives access to trade as well as transnational criminal organizations. AMLO flirted with joining the BRICS economic alliance, but ultimately rejected membership this year, almost certainly due to U.S. influence and avoiding a worsening spat with the U.S. government. Sheinbaum, a member of the same leftist Morena Party, will almost certainly continue AMLO’s left wing populist policies, which has included attempts to nationalize sectors of the Mexican economy and reform the judicial and electoral system. Mexico is effectively under one-party rule as the leftist Morena Party controls a majority of Mexico’s congress and state governorships. A potential Trump administration may find greater difficulty in dealing with Sheinbaum’s elitist, globalist technocrat ideology as opposed to the “little guy” left wing populism conveyed by AMLO. On the other hand, while Harris has claimed to support a border wall and stricter immigration policies, she will likely find more common ground with Sheinbaum, which could lead to a major agreement to facilitate more orderly mass immigration to the United States via Mexico. – M.S.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/ceo-corner/reasons-for-optimism-in-mexico-mnd-ceo/?utm_source=newsletter_paid

[Crafty_Dog]

AMLO Seizes a U.S.-Owned Port
Incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum inherits a Mexico hostile to investment.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
By
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
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Sept. 29, 2024 3:55 pm ET




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Mexico's outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum at a ceremony in Vicam, Mexico, Sept. 27. Photo: daniel sanchez/Shutterstock
When Claudia Sheinbaum is inaugurated as Mexico’s president on Tuesday, the king of Spain won’t be there. Neither will anyone from Spain’s Socialist government.

King Felipe VI has been left off the guest list because Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador got no answer in 2019 when he asked the monarch to apologize for the colonization of Mexico 500 years ago. AMLO, as the president is known, holds a grudge. In response to Mexico’s royal snub, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez decided not to send a delegation to the event.

Note that Spain’s king has done nothing to offend Ms. Sheinbaum, who drew up the invite list. If it was her decision to strain relations with Spain at the start of her six-year term, she isn’t as pragmatic as some have hoped. If, on the other hand, the decision to diss the king came about because Mr. López Obrador ordered it, she isn’t as independent as she wants the country to believe.

Ms. Sheinbaum is AMLO’s Morena party protégée. He handpicked her to be the Morena candidate in the June 2 presidential election, which she won. Ever since her victory Mexicans have been trying to figure out whether she will chart her own course or if Mr. López Obrador, who has a pronounced authoritarian streak, will tell her where to steer the ship.

As president, AMLO has worked to consolidate power in the executive branch and has elevated the military in economic and political matters. But his dream to create a one-party state with government-owned enterprises dominating the economy has fallen short because independent institutions like the Supreme Court have gotten in the way.

Ms. Sheinbaum will have supermajorities in both houses of Mexico’s Congress. It doesn’t matter that Morena skirted the rules of proportional representation to get them—with the help of the AMLO-controlled electoral tribunal. She can practically rule by decree. Thanks to the judicial reform that Mr. López Obrador pushed through Congress this month, Ms. Sheinbaum will also govern with a politicized judiciary by her side.

The prospect that she might use her office to temper the extremism—in economics and politics—that has been synonymous with Mr. López Obrador increasingly looks unlikely. Last week Morena gave Mr. López Obrador’s son Andrés Manuel López Beltran the party’s most important post. What AMLO wants, AMLO gets.

Capital has been fleeing the country. On June 1 it cost 16.95 pesos to buy a U.S. dollar. Now it costs 19.7 pesos. The carry trade, which captures the interest-rate spread between the two countries, is one reason the peso has held up during the López Obrador government. But that alone can’t support the currency. Ms. Sheinbaum’s first budget is due Nov. 15 and she will be under pressure from financial markets to bring the 6% budget deficit down to 3% or 3.5%.

Increasing uncertainty about property rights may be her bigger challenge. Last week AMLO effectively expropriated the American-owned Vulcan Materials quarry and port in the state of Quintana Roo by declaring its investment a natural protected area. The Alabama company bought the land in the 1980s and 1990s and built the only deepwater port on the Yucatán Peninsula. It operated for decades without trouble and in full compliance with regulations. It even won recognition for its environmental record.

But then Mr. López Obrador set his sights on the property. He didn’t want to pay the company for its multibillion-dollar operation. So in May 2022 Mexico suspended Vulcan’s permit for the Sac Tun limestone quarry and for the port. That was an indirect expropriation. Now the government has declared the property permanently unusable for the company.

The environmental argument can’t be taken seriously since Mr. López Obrador has been mowing down pristine forests to build the Mayan train on the Yucatán and the government has quarries, run by the army, adjacent to the property. Equally outrageous is an expropriation carried out while the company has a case before a North American Free Trade Agreement panel dating back to a 2018 dispute with Quintana Roo.

AMLO’s violations of the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s energy chapter and the Vulcan grab are two moves that signal that Mexico wants out of continental free trade. Yet a 300-page Sheinbaum policy paper titled “100 Steps to the Transformation” claims otherwise. Mexico, she writes, is “on the verge of great opportunity” via the USMCA. “The U.S. economy has shown substantial growth in the manufacturing, technological and construction sectors, which has caused a knock-on effect on imports from Mexico.” She wants “to make the most of it,” she says, forecasting a “boost” in public investment and “the convergence of private investment, in infrastructure projects” throughout the country.

Sounds good. But what happens if a newly inaugurated Donald Trump notices Mexico isn’t playing fair?

[Crafty_Dog]

October 2, 2024
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Graphic Essay: Developing Southern Mexico
New projects here could be the key to leveling the country’s wealth disparities.
By: Geopolitical Futures

One of Mexico’s defining challenges as a country is the stark economic divide between its northern and southern regions. This disparity makes it extremely difficult for the government to define economic priorities in a way that meets the needs of all its people.

Average Monthly Salary by State, 2023

(click to enlarge)

Mexico’s most developed economies are in the north – a result of the region’s proximity to the United States, which shares several integrated production chains with its southern neighbor. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the associated economic activity generally stays in the north, as do higher-skilled and better-paid workers.

Percent of Population Living in Poverty, 2022

(click to enlarge)

The south has historically been much poorer. Its economies are among the least developed, and its households most dependent on welfare and remittances. The fact that industrial activity is concentrated in the north, nearest Mexico’s largest trade partner, has left the south comparatively bereft of transportation infrastructure.

The administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who left office just last month, launched several national infrastructure projects meant to enhance connectivity in the south and create economic hubs for basic manufacturing. The goal of these initiatives was to lay the groundwork for more sustained economic activity and development.

Infrastructure Developments in South Mexico

(click to enlarge)

Enter the interoceanic corridor, which crosses the isthmus of Tehuantepec. This was one of the three locations originally studied in the 1870s for a possible canal between the Atlantic and Pacific. Some 150 years later, Mexico is leveraging this geography by creating strategic manufacturing and transport corridors to easily export goods to European and Asian markets – and to move them between oceans.

Interoceanic Corridor

(click to enlarge)

Another major project is the Mayan Train, which aims to connect southern states to these commercial hubs. Where tourism and oil tended to dominate certain states' economies, there are now construction and industry-related opportunities for local workers. Railway construction in particular is already a major driver of economic growth in these states.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/politics/12-events-that-defined-amlo-presidency/?utm_source=newsletter_paid

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.oann.com/newsroom/mexican-mayor-alejandro-arcos-found-decapitated-six-days-after-taking-office/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-exports-us-import-market/?utm_source=newsletter_paid

[Crafty_Dog]

(4) FUTURE OF U.S.-MEXICO RELATIONS UNDER SHEINBAUM: Former Mexican Ambassadors to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán (2007-13) and Martha Bárcena (2018-21) expressed concerns that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is setting Mexico up for failure.

Bárcena says the new Mexican government is betting on the U.S. pursuing a nearshoring policy but that the U.S. is likely to pursue a reshoring policy. Sarukhán pointed out that Mexico’s biggest “nearshoring” competitor is Texas, and added that Mexico is facing similar energy shortages as the U.S., preventing manufacturing infrastructure from even being built.

Bárcena believes the U.S. Congress will seek to renegotiate the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement upon review in 2025. Bárcena says the Sheinbaum administration has no trade experts ready for renegotiation and all former experts are “neoliberals.”

U.S. Ambassadors to Mexico Roberta Jacobson and Tony Wayne advised Mexico against further pursuing a “triangulation policy” with China and the U.S. because it would just anger the United States.

Why It Matters: Sheinbaum is a technocrat who will carry on former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s (AMLO) left wing populist “Fourth Transformation” political revolution. But Sheinbuam’s ambitious plans for the Mexican economy are up against reality. Mexico, for instance, remains dependent on U.S. oil exports to fuel its economy, and Sheinbaum’s pledge to “green” the Mexican economy will almost certainly stall. Sheinbaum has also promised to re-industrial parts of northern Mexico to produce exports for U.S. markets. Mexico also became the top U.S. trade partner this year, signaling a deepening dependence. This is another reason why AMLO rejected membership in the BRICS economic alliance, but that idea may be revisited under Sheinbaum. A potential Trump administration may find greater difficulty in dealing with Sheinbaum’s elitist, globalist technocrat ideology as opposed to the “little guy” left wing populism conveyed by AMLO. Like AMLO, Sheinbaum will reject Mexico being seen as a vassal of the United States, while closer relations with China is one alternative. The trend among left wing governments across Latin America has been to turn towards economic promises from China. A Sheinbaum pivot towards China, as we’ve seen with Brazil’s Lula da Silva, is the most dangerous scenario. – M.S.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/business/sheinbaum-chinese-imports-to-mexico-trade-jorge-guajardo/?utm_source=newsletter_paid


What’s President Sheinbaum’s plan for trade with China? Former Ambassador Jorge Guajardo weighs in
MND Staff
October 14, 2024
Jorge Guajardo

Jorge Guajardo was Mexico's ambassador to China until 2013 and is now a partner in an advisory firm. Mexico News Daily asked him five questions about Mexico's trade relationships with both the U.S. and China. (Courtesy)

Reduce reliance on Asian imports to Mexico, especially Chinese imports. Increase Mexico’s manufacturing capacity. Seize the nearshoring opportunity by proactively seeking foreign investment.

These are a few of the objectives of the new federal government that have emerged since Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on Oct. 1.

Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last week that the federal government is looking at “how we can reduce all the imports we have” and “increase domestic content in any way we can.”

He also said that Mexico would “mobilize all legitimate interests in favor of North America” amid the ongoing trade war between the United States and China.

For his part, Deputy Economy Minister for Foreign Trade Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez Romano revealed that the Sheinbaum administration has asked U.S. companies and other foreign firms that operate in Mexico to look at substituting some goods and components made in China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan with locally-made products.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O traveled to New York and met with the CEOs of JPMorgan and BlackRock last Thursday in an apparent attempt to reassure them that Mexico remains a good place to invest.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at a presidential press conference standing behind a podium and holding her hands up near her face, with her thumbs and forefingers of each hand touching. She is in mid-speech.
President Sheinbaum has sought to reassure investors that doing business in Mexico continues to be a good investment. (Mario Jasso/Cuartoscuro)
The president herself has said that investors “have nothing to worry about” despite significant concern about the government’s judicial reform and other proposed constitutional overhauls. Sheinbaum is set to to convey the same message at the annual U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue meeting this Tuesday.

Mexico News Daily recently discussed the objectives listed at the top of this article —  and related issues — with Jorge Guajardo, Mexico’s longest serving ambassador to China (2007-13) and a former consul general in Austin, Texas.

Guajardo, now a consultant with global advisory firm DGA Group, made it clear that he is impressed with the start the government has made toward achieving the aforesaid goals.

The Mexican government’s attitude toward China
Guajardo told MND that previous Mexican administrations, and other governments around the world, have started their terms “thinking they could establish a new trade relationship with China.”

He said that many presidents and prime ministers come into power thinking they are going to “reset relations with China” before realizing later that their government’s trade relationship with the East Asian economic powerhouse is not in fact in their best interests.

“So the fact that the Sheinbaum administration starts from day one saying we’re going to be keeping an eye on Asian imports is very important and deserves a lot of credit,” Guajardo said.

“They’re not wasting a single day. … We should understand how big a statement that is. Right off the bat they understand that Mexico has nothing to gain from trading with Asia and a lot to gain from trading within North America,” he said.

Chinese import store Miniso in a Mexican mall
While the federal government considers how to reduce reliance on imports from Asia, low-cost Chinese import stores are thriving in Mexico. (Shutterstock)
Guajardo noted that Sheinbaum administration officials have referred more broadly to Asia in their remarks about the desire to reduce Mexico’s dependence on imports, “and not just China.”

He asserted that their choice of language is “important because a lot of the [Chinese] imports come via Vietnam, … which has a free trade agreement with Mexico,” in reference to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The import substitution plan
Guajardo said that the fact the current government is talking about import substitution is “visionary.”

With China, which has a vast industrial capacity — overcapacity in fact — a global trade environment that is open and free is not viable, he said.

“You will get overrun,” Guajardo said, emphasizing the need to protect “the industries we already have in Mexico” and the importance of not subjecting them to an “unfair playing field” by making them compete with Chinese products, many of which can be produced very cheaply, in part thanks to generous subsidies from the Chinese government.

The ex-ambassador said he didn’t know how realistic it is for Mexico to substitute a significant portion of the imports it receives from China and other Asian countries, but noted that Mexican companies already produce some of the products that are currently shipped here from there.

Guajardo said that the import substitution plan should be supported by both tariffs — he advocated even higher duties than those recently implemented by the Mexican government — as well as regulations that help to protect Mexican industry.

(Guajardo spoke to MND earlier this year about the need for the Mexican government to be “more creative with regulations” to shut out exports in certain sectors.)

Is protectionism worth it?
Before seeking to broaden the range of goods produced in Mexico, the government should first offer greater protection to existing industries whose products are being substituted by Chinese imports, Guajardo said.

“That in and of itself would be a huge step,” he said.

Guajardo cited the glass, petrochemical and textiles industries as three Mexican sectors that need to be protected.

The protection of domestic industries could incentivize other companies to invest in Mexico, he said.

The glass, petrochemical and textiles industries are three Mexican industries that would benefit from government protection, Guajardo says. Pictured: a Pemex petrochemical refinery in Dos Bocas, Veracruz. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
“You can not do that if there are no protections because there is no business model” for potential investors, Guajardo said.

He acknowledged that there will be blowback because protectionism will inevitably cause the price of goods to go up — say goodbye to dirt cheap Chinese imports, in other words.

However, “the question you have to ask yourself,” Guajardo said, is the following: “Is it worth paying a higher price [for goods] and in the process avoid being totally dependent on China and have a more independent supply chain?”

“Eventually I believe we have to come to terms with the answer being yes,” he said.

“We have to be willing to absorb a higher price in exchanging for having sovereignty over supply chains,” Guajardo added.

The importance of a supportive industrial policy
Guajardo told MND that the new government is cognizant that industry in Mexico will need government support to succeed.

The “realization” of the need to have a supportive industrial policy is “important,” he said, noting that the administration of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was “reluctant to give any help to business” — even during the COVID pandemic.

Guajardo highlighted that the implementation of a supportive industrial policy is not risk-free: It could lead to corruption via the “misallocation of funds” and there is a “risk of betting on companies that end up losing.”

China, he continued, “inherently understands that industrial policy will create some duds.”


Providing government support to Mexican industry comes with risk, but is necessary to foster the sectors’ development, Guajardo said. (Wikimedia Commons)
“They’re willing to assume that risk and in the process create a lot of champions. As a country we have to understand that there will be duds, there will be things that don’t work out, but it’s important nevertheless that we take the risk in supporting sectors in which we want to have champions,” he said.

Doing so will mean “we have technology and [our own] intellectual property,” Guajardo added.

Promptly and unequivocally siding with the US is ‘huge’
Guajardo noted that many countries around the world come under pressure to choose between the United States and China in an economic and strategic sense, but most are reluctant to do so.

However, under the leadership of Sheinbaum, Mexico is “not hesitating for a second” in declaring that it is on the United States’ side, he said.

“Again that is a huge statement and I think the new administration deserves a lot of credit,” Guajardo said.

Rather than “hedging,” Mexico under Sheinbaum is going all in on the U.S. side, he stressed.

“Right off the bat they say, we’re going to put a stop to this [trade imbalance] and we’re going to align with North America. I’m hard pressed to think of another country that has been able to do that,” Guajardo said.

“That is big, that is significant and I give them a lot of credit for that. … It’s huge, I haven’t seen it in any other country in the world,” he said.

Sheinbaum herself was asked to choose between the United States and China during an interview before she became president.

A line of trucks at the Mexico-US border
President Sheinbaum has emphasized the inseparable links between the Mexican and U.S. economies. (Comentario U de C/X)
In response, she said that Mexico has an “inseparable” trade relationship with the United States and noted that the two countries are “economically integrated” whereas “there is no free trade agreement with China.”

“… The relationship with China exists and it has to continue existing, but the agreement with the U.S. has to be maintained and strengthened as well,” Sheinbaum said of the USMCA free trade pact, which also includes Canada.

Proactively seeking investment is ‘very positive’
Guajardo said that the new federal administration has shown it is going to be “very aggressive” in its efforts to attract investment, and declared that such an approach is “very positive.”

However, he conceded that the judicial reform — which will allow Mexican citizens to directly elect judges, including Supreme Court justices — is the “elephant in the room” as far as investors, and potential investors, are concerned.

The proposed energy reform, which seeks to provide a constitutional guarantee for the state’s majority (54%) stake in electricity generation, “may also be a problem for investors,” Guajardo said.

However, he chose to “set those [concerns] aside for now and suspend judgement because I’m very optimistic about the way they’re trying to reach out [to potential investors] and really ride this nearshoring wave.”

That wave, or trend, has been described as a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, but it is one that Mexico has not yet been able to fully grasp, as demonstrated by the low levels of “new” investment in foreign direct investment data.

“Hopefully with this new strategy of fitting the country into North America, industrial policy and import substitution we will make headway in bringing in new industries [to Mexico],” Guajardo said.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/business/mexico-wants-us-companies-help-reduce-imports-from-china/?utm_source=mktg_email_paid

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/business/foxconn-nvidia-mexico-superchip-plant/?utm_source=mktg_email_paid

[Crafty_Dog]

Sheinbaum refuses judge’s order to withdraw judicial reform
MND Staff
MND Staff
October 18, 2024

Is Sheinbaum correct that the judge's order lacks a legal basis? If the federal attorney general declines to prosecute public officials who violate injunctions, it may be a moot point. (Rogelio Morales/Cuartoscuro)

President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday that she won’t comply with a judge’s order to withdraw the publication of a decree that promulgated the government’s controversial judicial reform.

Nancy Juárez Salas, a federal district judge based in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, ordered Sheinbaum and the director of the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) to remove the decree published on Sept. 15, ruling that the government breached a provisional suspension order against publication.

Former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador promulgated the judicial reform despite a court in Colima ruling against its publication in the government’s gazette.

In her ruling on Thursday, Juárez ordered Sheinbaum and DOF Director Alejandro López González to eliminate the published decree within 24 hours.

She warned that the failure to do so is punishable in accordance with a law that stipulates that a public official who fails to comply with an injunction can be sentenced to a prison term of up to nine years as well as fined and removed from office.

However, the Reforma newspaper reported that the Federal Attorney General’s Office didn’t proceed against officials who defied court orders during the presidency of López Obrador.

Judge Nancy Juárez Salas
Federal district judge Nancy Juárez Salas ordered Sheinbaum to reverse the publication of the judicial reform, saying that it was published in violation of a previous suspension order. (@mitoteroenredes_/X)
At her morning press conference on Friday, Sheinbaum said that the judge in Coatzacoalcos doesn’t have the authority to order the removal of the decree from the DOF.

She offered three reasons in support of her assertion:

“A judge is not above the people.”
“What she’s doing doesn’t have any legal basis.”
Mexico’s Congress — which approved the judicial reform in September — “ordered the then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador” to publish the decree.
“So we’re not going to take the publication down,” Sheinbaum said.

The judicial reform — the most controversial aspect of which is the provision allowing citizens to elect all judges in Mexico, including Supreme Court justices — will not be stopped by anyone, the president said.

“Not a male judge nor a female judge, nor eight Supreme Court justices can stop the will of the people of Mexico,” said Sheinbaum, who made it known before she was elected in June that she supported all of the constitutional reform proposals that López Obrador submitted to Congress in February.

The president also said that the government would file a complaint against Juárez with the Federal Judiciary Council (CJF).

Rulings against constitutional reforms are invalid, says president’s legal advisor 
Ernestina Godoy, legal counsel to the president, told Sheinbaum’s press conference that constitutional reforms that have been approved by Mexico’s Congress are “exempt” from judicial revision.

She highlighted that the Supreme Court, “in multiple opinions and rulings,” has “rejected” the notion that a constitutional reform can be reviewed in court.

“It’s extremely clear,” said Godoy, who served as attorney general of Mexico City while Sheinbaum was mayor of the capital.

Ernestina Godoy, legal counsel to the president, speaks at a podium with President Sheinbaum standing behind her
Ernestina Godoy, legal counsel to the president, said approved constitutional reforms are not subject to judicial revision. (Rogelio Morales/Cuartoscuro)
Arturo Zaldívar, a former chief justice of the Supreme Court who is now an official in the Sheinbaum administration, also said that judges don’t have the authority to hand down rulings against constitutional reforms.

Godoy said that the CJF needs to review the conduct of district judges who are “defying the constitution” by handing down rulings against constitutional reforms.

Many of those judges could soon be without a job as the federal government intends to hold a first round of judicial elections in 2025.

Critics of the reform argue that judges sympathetic to the ruling Morena party’s legislative agenda could come to dominate the nation’s courts, effectively removing an important check on government power.

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post

Chilpancingo is on the road from Mexico City to Acapulco.


https://www.oann.com/newsroom/mexican-mayor-alejandro-arcos-found-decapitated-six-days-after-taking-office/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/pemex-debt-sheinbaum-administration-plan-save-it/?utm_source=newsletter_paid

[ccp]

"
HomeNews
State oil company Pemex is drowning in debt. Can the Sheinbaum administration save it?
MND Staff
MND Staff
October 25, 2024
8
A Pemex gas station sign against a blue sky dotted with clouds
Despite major government investment over the past six years, Pemex still has a debt of around US $100 billion. (Shutterstock)
 Share
Mexico’s heavily indebted state oil company has a new CEO, and will take a new direction during the six-year term of President Claudia Sheinbaum, an internal Pemex document indicates.

The document, seen this week by the Reuters news agency, indicates that Pemex will develop new business models to attract investment during Sheinbaum’s 2024-30 administration.

It also shows that Pemex will ramp up deepwater oil exploration, and that the state-owned company is aiming to increase its hydrocarbon reserves and ensure their restitution during the coming years.

Sheinbaum, sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on Oct. 1, and Pemex’s new CEO, Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, face a monumental task to turn around the fortunes of the state oil company, which has debt of around US $100 billion.

The administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador poured money into Pemex, decreed major tax relief for the company and increased its refining capacity by building a new refinery on the Tabasco coast and purchasing Shell’s share of a jointly-owned refinery in Texas.

But the “rescue” of Pemex that López Obrador frequently spoke about is still far from complete, as demonstrated by the company’s levels of debt and its oil production capacity, which is just half what it was 20 years ago.

Former President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador posing with Pemex workers in orange suits
Despite former President López Obrador’s efforts to keep the struggling state oil company afloat, Pemex’s financial woes continue. (lopezobrador.org.mx)
Pemex currently produces around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, compared to more than 3 million bpd in 2004. Reuters reported that by “adding condensate, a natural gas liquid that is similar to a very light crude oil,” Pemex’s production is 1.8 million bpd.

When he was announced as the next CEO of Pemex in August, Rodríguez, an energy economist and engineering academic, attributed the decline in oil production to “geological maturity [of oil fields], lack of investment, carelessness, negligence and a cunning plan to privatize the company” during the so-called neoliberal period of 1982 to 2018.

Ezoic
New business models
Citing the internal Pemex document it saw, Reuters reported that the state oil company will seek to develop new business models to attract external investment, something that López Obrador — a staunch critic of the 2013 energy reform — did not seek.

In August, Reuters reported that the Sheinbaum administration would “encourage state oil producer Pemex to seek equity partnerships with private oil companies, a model out of favor with the current president, in a bid to boost reserves amid towering debt.”

Pemex CEO Víctor Rodríguez Padilla with President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum named Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, an energy engineer and an economist, to lead Pemex as she starts her term as president. (Graciela López Herrera/Cuartoscuro)
The news agency said that information came from “four sources familiar with the matter.”

Partnerships with private firms would be similar to joint ventures Pemex entered into after the 2013 energy reform, which opened up Mexico’s oil and electricity industries to private and foreign companies.

Pemex already has a partnership with Australian company Woodside Energy to develop the Trion deepwater oil field, located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tamaulipas.

That partnership, in which Pemex has a 40% stake, dates back to 2017, when the government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto — which enacted the energy reform — was still in office.

Pemex’s oil exploration plans   
The López Obrador government faced criticism for investing so heavily in new and existing refineries, with various analysts arguing that the move was unwise as it took money away from Pemex’s more profitable oil exploration business.

Now, the Sheinbaum administration appears set to put more emphasis on exploration.

In addition to intensifying deepwater exploration, the Pemex internal document indicates that the company will maintain onshore exploration, Reuters said.

The document also shows that Pemex will maintain exploration in shallow waters and in areas adjacent to existing production fields.

Efforts will focus on choosing exploration and production projects that offer the “greatest potential for success and profitability,” the document said.

A render illustration of an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico
Pemex is partnering with the company Woodside to develop the Trion oil field, as shown in this render illustration of the planned development. (Woodside)
Pemex, Reuters said, will also aim to mitigate the decline of existing oil fields and strengthen the development of new ones.

The Trion field — in which Woodside and Pemex are investing billions of dollars — is expected to produce 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and 2.5 million cubic meters of gas a day beginning in 2028.

Pemex discovered the field — located at a depth of 2,500 meters about 180 kilometers off the Tamaulipas coast and 30 kilometers south of the Mexico-United States maritime border — in 2012.

The role of Pemex in the energy transition
President Sheinbaum, a climate scientist who worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, has pledged to invest heavily in renewable energy projects during her term in government.

In August, Rodríguez said that Pemex will play a “fundamental role” in Mexico’s transition to greater use of renewable energy sources.

“Pemex won’t limit itself to making oil and gas condensate as it has always done,” the now-CEO said.

“We’re going to do new projects. We’re going to have partnerships with society, with universities, with business people, to do the projects of the future. We’re going to produce wind energy, solar energy, offshore wind energy. We’re going to produce strategic materials including lithium,” Rodríguez said.

Sheinbaum is aiming to increase the participation of renewables in energy generation to 45% by 2030, almost doubling their current participation.

Sheinbaum committed to ‘energy sovereignty’
In 2020, former president López Obrador pledged that Mexico would be self-sufficient in gasoline by 2023 through the rehabilitation of Mexico’s six existing refineries and the construction of the Olmeca Refinery on the Tabasco coast.

He didn’t achieve that goal, but he did reduce reliance on gasoline imports, which primarily come from the United States. Former Pemex CEO Octavio Romero presented projections in January that showed that self-sufficiency could be achieved in 2027.

Earlier this month, Sheinbaum noted that crude exports have been reduced in order to increase gasoline production in Mexico’s refineries, and expressed her commitment to advancing the “energy sovereignty” project."

Sounds Trumpian - or simply common sense.

[Crafty_Dog]

In the Mexican Constitution resources (oil, silver, etc) under the surface are part of the national patrimony.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/01/sheinbaum-mexico-constitution-crisis-judiciary/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/sheinbaums-security-strategy-more-social-spending-and-more-military/?utm_source=newsletter_paid