Exclusive: Mexico opens up its heroin fight to U.S., U.N. observers

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Crime & Violence, Drug WarLeave a comment

4/7/2017 Reuters

For the first time in at least a decade, Mexico’s army is allowing the United States and the United Nations to observe opium poppy eradication, a step toward deeper cooperation to fight heroin traffickers, three sources in Mexico said.

The opening could bring Mexico more in line with other drug producing countries like Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru that have been heavily involved with the United Nations in cultivation studies and eradication efforts.

The Mexican army hopes to gain more credit at home and abroad for its work and address doubts in Washington about the quality of its data and the success of the eradication program, the officials said.

Mexico: Let’s get NAFTA done now

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Economic IntegrationLeave a comment

4/7/2017 CNN Money

Idelfonso-Guajardo Mexico’s message: Let’s get it done soon before it’s too late.

“It will be in the best advantage of the countries involved that we finish this negotiation within the context of this year,” Mexico’s economy secretary Ildefonso Guajardo told CNNMoney Thursday evening at the World Economic Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Why this year? Mexico is scheduled to hold presidential elections in July 2018, and Guajardo’s boss, President Enrique Peña Nieto, can’t run again because of term limits.

There’s no guarantee the next administration in Mexico will come to the negotiating table.

Guajardo, who is one of the chief negotiators on NAFTA for Mexico, was echoing comments made by his American counterpart, U.S. commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, who said he hopes to start the process of trade talks before Congress’ spring recess begins April 10.

Guajardo drilled the point home, arguing it’d be hard to ratify a deal by mid-2018.

“Whatever I negotiate, nobody will be able to make sure we deliver, because you don’t know the outcome of the elections,” Guajardo said. “Incentives are there for us to really set an objective of negotiation — the latest by the end of 2017.”

Corruption Case Dampens Diplomatic Victory of Mexico Kingpin’s Sentencing in US

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Corruption, Crime & Violence, Drug WarLeave a comment

4/6/2017 InSight Crime

A former leader of Mexico’s Beltrán Leyva Organization was sentenced to life in prison in a US court, but this diplomatic victory was quickly overshadowed by allegations that a Mexican police commander had worked for years to undermine US investigations of cartel leaders.

A federal judge in Washington, DC sentenced Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, a former leader of Mexico’s Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO), to life in prison on April 5. Judge Richard J. Leon also ordered the forfeiture of $529 million, a fraction of the $10 billion fortune that prosecutors estimate the BLO amassed between 2000 and 2012 by trafficking tons of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States, according to the Washington Post.

A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official called Beltrán Leyva a “Goliath” in the world of Mexican drug trafficking, reported the Los Angeles Times. Judge Leon said he was “a leader of one of the largest drug cartels in the world.”

Beltrán Leyva was extradited to the United States in November 2014 following a lengthy legal battle on the part of his lawyers to keep him in Mexico. According to the Post, he pleaded guilty in February 2016 without an agreement in place that could have lowered his sentence in exchange for information on other drug traffickers.

Meanwhile in Chicago, authorities unsealed a criminal complaint against former Mexican police commander Ivan Reyes Arzate for allegedly leaking information to cartel leaders who were under investigation by the DEA. A statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said Reyes was “the principal point of contact for information being shared between U.S. law enforcement and the Mexican Federal Police.”

Mexican exporters jittery, awaiting Trump trade moves

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Business and CompetitivenessLeave a comment

4/6/2017 The Guardian

The bustling, cheap-labor assembly plants that dot the Mexican side of the US border are booming, but President Donald Trump’s stances on taxes and trade have them worried.

Trump wants to renegotiate the NAFTA trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, which has been in force for a generation, and his Republican Party has floated tax reform ideas that would hurt Mexican companies.

“Everyone is waiting to see what move the United States is going to make,” said Mario Hernandez of KPMG, a consultant for companies that run the so-called ‘maquiladora’ plants in Ciudad Juarez, across the frontier from El Paso, Texas.

Mexico extends 15 percent steel tariff for non-free trade partner countries

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Business and CompetitivenessLeave a comment

4/6/2017 Reuters

Mexico has extended until October a 15 percent tariff on 97 separate steel products imported from countries with which it does not share a free trade agreement, including China, the official government gazette said on Thursday.

The tariff was first raised in 2015 to protect local producers, but has since been extended three times. Mexico’s Economy Ministry said in the gazette that a continued global steel glut had necessitated extension of the tariff.

Local steel industry representatives had asked for the tariff to be extended to protect against cheap Chinese imports.

U.S. South, not just Mexico, stands in way of Rust Belt jobs revival

On April 7, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Economic GrowthLeave a comment

4/7/2017 Reuters

In the years since the 2008 financial crisis, this southern U.S. port city has attracted a new Airbus factory, seen its steel industry retool, and gained thousands of jobs building the Navy’s new combat vessel.

Some 300 miles north in Huntsville, new businesses sprout in farm fields drawn by readily available land, low taxes, flexible labor rules and improving infrastructure.

As President Trump faces pressure to deliver on his promise to revive manufacturing in the northern “rust belt” states that put him in the White House, his biggest challenge may not be Mexico or China, but the southern U.S. states that form the other pillar of his political base.

States like Alabama have built a presence in the global supply chain in direct competition with the country’s Midwestern industrial heartland, and even if Trump coaxes jobs back to the United States they may well head south rather than north.

Whether the “rust belt’s” expectations are met will be central to 2018 U.S. mid-term elections and likely frame the presidential race in 2020.

Mexico urges respect for 2018 election race after U.S. official’s comment

On April 6, 2017 By mexicoinstituteIn Democracy and Elections, Government, Media and Society, U.S.-Mexico RelationsLeave a comment

4/6/2017 Reuters

luis videgaray U.S. officials should be respectful of the Mexican 2018 presidential election, Mexico’s foreign minister said Thursday after a top American security official speculated Wednesday that a win by a leftist candidate would be bad for both nations.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray also said his government would prefer to conclude a looming re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) this year rather than during 2018.

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