Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
5/20/2019 – Associated Press
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says that the government is ending tax forgiveness, which for years had been a gift to the country’s biggest taxpayers. According to the government, the pardons were abused under the previous administrations of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto to the tune of more than $15.5 billion uncollected since 2007.
5/20/2019 – Reuters
By Anthony Esposito
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, looking to make good on a promise to clean up rampant corruption, will go after judges that have aligned themselves with the country’s notorious drug cartels, a government official said.
5/20/2019 – Bloomberg
5/20/2019 – Associated Press
By Christopher Sherman
A U.N. commission on Monday presented a roadmap to boost economic development in three Central American nations whose poverty and violence now push desperate migrants to travel across Mexico to the United States. The plan calls for hefty increases in social spending, tackling corruption and improving security — as well as a hefty dose of financial support and investment, possibly from the United States.
5/17/2019 – The Economist
How quickly winds change. The school reforms signed in 2013 by Enrique Peña Nieto, then Mexico’s president, were to be the only popular legacy of an unpopular man. No longer. On May 8th the senate scrapped them. In mere months a reform deemed vital to reduce poverty lost many of its most ardent defenders. Even senators from Mr Peña’s cowed Institutional Revolutionary Party assented to the death of a law they recently favoured. So did the national teachers’ union, the STNE, despite having backed the reforms six years ago.
That is a testament to the power of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mr Peña’s populist successor, who has long opposed the reforms. It is also bad news for the millions of pupils who might have benefited, had the reforms been allowed to continue. The “new” education measures passed in their place represent a return to old ways.
5/17/2019 – Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s central bank on Thursday said wage increases have outstripped productivity gains in some sectors, posing risks to inflation and employment, as it held its benchmark interest rate steady.
The Bank of Mexico’s (Banxico) board members voted unanimously to hold the overnight interbank rate at 8.25 percent, the level it has been at since Dec. 20. The rate is presently at its highest level since 2008.
5/17/2019 – Business Insider
By Laura Weiss
Mexico’s drug policies could be in for some sweeping changes, and with them the country’s relations with the United States.
Last week, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that his administration would seek to revise the Merida Initiative, the $3 billion US aid package that has largely funded Mexico’s war on drugs. In a press conference May 9, Lopez Obrador, widely known in Mexico as AMLO, said his administration does not “want aid for the use of force, we want aid for development.”
The announcement came shortly after the Mexican government released a National Development Plan for the next five years that proposes decriminalizing all drugs in Mexico. That plan, approved by Mexico’s Senate, also seeks to eradicate corruption and improve the justice system; guarantee jobs and higher education for children; and invest in infrastructure and health services through regional programs and development goals.
