Mexico’s Senate Ratifies Sweeping Asia-Pacific Trade Deal

04/25/2018 The New York Times

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Senate on Tuesday voted to ratify a Asia-Pacific trade agreement, making it the first of 11 signatory countries to back the arduously negotiated framework that was rejected by the United States.

Senators voted 73-24 to approve the pact, which was signed in March without the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of talks within days of taking office last year.

Mexico, which has been a leading proponent of free trade in Latin America, is currently in talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and the United States. Trump has repeatedly threatened to scrap NAFTA if it is not reworked to benefit U.S. workers.

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Migrants Sent Record $466 Billion Home in 2017: World Bank

04/23/2018 Bloomberg

The world’s 266 million migrant workers sent a record $466 billion to developing countries last year following two consecutive declines and the money bound for home this year is projected to increase to $485 billion, according to the World Bank.

“The overall recovery in remittances is better than we expected. It is driven by stronger growth in the European Union, the Russian Federation, and the United States,” the bank said in a statement. “The rebound in remittances, when valued in U.S. dollars, was helped by higher oil prices and a strengthening of the euro and ruble.”

The countries with the largest inflows in 2017 were India with $69 billion, China at $64 billion, the Philippines $33 billion and Mexico $31 billion.

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Seeking asylum, Central American migrants await fate as they approach Tijuana border

04/22/2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune

Just yards from the U.S. border, the Movimiento Juventud 2000 migrant shelter is typically filled with Mexicans deported from the United States. But in recent days, the modest single-story structure in Tijuana’s Zona Norte has been housing several dozen migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.

“We’ll see what God says,” said Marisela Madrid, 29, of Choluma, Honduras, feeding a donut to her six-year-old son, Erik, shortly after arriving in Tijuana on Wednesday. Though exhausted after three days on a bus from Guadalajara, mother and child were preparing to leave early the next morning to the San Ysidro Port of Entry to ask for the U.S. government for asylum. “We hope they give us an opportunity.”

The migrants say they are members of the Pueblo Sin Fronteras Caravan, whose journey through Mexico in recent weeks has ignited the fury of President Donald Trump and drawn international attention.

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Military schools. Amnesty for narcos. How Mexico’s presidential candidates want to fight crime.

04/25/2018 The Washington Post

MEXICO CITY — One candidate called for cutting off the hands of corrupt public servants to combat corruption, and creating military schools to instill discipline in children. Another suggested an amnesty for those caught up in the illegal drug trade.

Mexico’s five presidential candidates squared off this week in the first of three debates before the July 1 elections. They prescribed some dire policies — signs of the distress in a country that’s endured a decade-long drug war and a steady stream of corruption cases.

There were few details provided for the most dramatic proposals, and the candidates were quick to abandon policy talk to attack the front-runner: left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His proximity to power spooks the political and business elite, but he leads polls by double digits.

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Why are so many priests in Mexico being murdered?

04/24/2018 USA Today

The murders of two more priests in Mexico in the last week raise questions over why church leaders in this devoutly Catholic country are increasingly being abducted, tortured and killed.

Mexico is now considered to be the most dangerous country to be a priest, according to the Catholic news agency Crux Now.

The Rev. Juan Miguel Contreras Garcia became the 23rd church leader killed in a string of violent attacks since 2012 and the fourth priest murdered in Mexico this year. He was shot down in his parish on Friday night as he listened to confession in the western state of Jalisco.

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EMERGING MARKETS-Mexico peso rebounds, Brazil real’s slump deepens

04/24/2018 Reuters

MEXICO CITY, April 24 (Reuters) – Mexico’s peso bounced back
from a steep selloff on Tuesday, boosted by optimism the country
would strike a new trade deal with the United States, while
worries about elections drove Brazil’s currency to a 16-month
low.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that a new North American
Free Trade Agreement could be hatched quickly as officials from
Mexico, Canada and the United States held talks in Washington in
hopes of tying up a deal in the coming days.

Mexico sends around 80 percent of its exports to its
northern neighbor and the currency has whipsawed since Trump’s
election in late 2016 over the shifting outlook of the NAFTA
deal.

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Mexico inflation falls to lowest in over 14 months

04/24/2018 Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Annual inflation in Mexico slipped to its lowest level in over 14 months in the first half of April, moderating at a faster pace than expected, data from the national statistics agency showed on Tuesday.

Inflation in the 12 months to the first half of April fell to 4.69 percent, from 4.90 percent in the second half of March. That’s the lowest reading since the second half of January 2017.

A Reuters poll had showed annual inflation slowing to 4.77 percent.

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