Sculpture in Austria benefits young women in San Miguel

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September 16, 2020

An expat artist in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, is using prints of her sculpture that was installed in Austria in September to aid disadvantaged women in her area.

Glen Rogers, a Mississippi-born painter, print-maker and sculptor, created the sculpture called Throne for a Goddess after being inspired by the Venus of Willendorf, a 30,000-year-old, 11-centimeter figurine discovered in 1908 depicting a curvaceous, nude female figure. Rogers was able to see the figurine in person during a trip to Austria last year and created the throne-like sculpture for an art park in the Styrian countryside.

She was unable to travel to Austria for the sculpture’s installation this month due to coronavirus travel restrictions but came up with the idea of the print to help continue to celebrate the concept of women’s empowerment that inspired the sculpture from the onset. She says it has guided much of her artwork over her 30-year career as an artist.

“This project is all about empowering and honoring women – from the ancient to the present,” Rogers said.

Mujeres in Cambio was a logical choice, as the non-profit has helped rural women in the San Miguel area by providing scholarships and teaching them marketable skills for the past 25 years.

The sculpture by San Miguel artist Glen Rogers.

Board member Rhea Calkins was enthusiastic about Rogers’ offer to create a commemorative print. “It is definitely not often that we get such a generous offer from an artist of her caliber. We are honored,” Calkins said.

The archival-quality, limited edition prints measuring 22 x 28 centimeters are signed by the artist and priced at US $100 and Mujeres in Cambio will receive 40% of the cost. The prints are available at glenrogersart.com.

They depict the back of the gold-toned throne sculpture emblazoned with the image of the Venus of Willendorf and this message from the artist: “Rest in the Warm Embrace of the Goddess, the Great Mother, the Divine Feminine. Feel Her Nurturing Love and Offer of Abundance and Prosperity. Sit in Her Lap of Fertility and Plant a Seed for your Dreams and New Beginnings.”

Last year, Mujeres en Cambio gave out 1.79 million pesos (US $83,000) in scholarships to 187 girls from 46 villages in rural San Miguel. In 2019, 90.61% of all funds donated to the charity went directly to the young women they help.

Mexico News Daily

CORRECTION: The earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the US dollar value of scholarships awarded last year.

75% of Baja California restaurants have reopened after being certified

By

MND Staff

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September 16, 2020

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A Safe Table seal at a restaurant in Baja California.

Just over three months since the national restaurant association Canirac introduced its “Safe Table” program to protect diners from the risk of coronavirus infection, 75% of restaurants in Baja California have been certified by the scheme and reopened.

Miguel Ángel Badiola Montaño, president of the Baja California chapter of Canirac, said that more and more restaurants are being certified as “Safe Table” businesses every day.

The program provides training to restaurants on the implementation of health protocols to reduce the risk of the coronavirus spreading among diners and staff.

Badiola said that 2,318 restaurants in Tijuana, Baja California’s largest city, have reopened since the initiative was launched.

The Canirac official estimated that between 10% and 12% of restaurants in the northern border state won’t reopen because they don’t have the economic means to do so. Badiola said the situation in Baja California is much better than in many other states, where up to 30% of restaurants are not expected to reopen after being forced to close due to the pandemic.

Canirac predicted in May that 100,000 restaurants would close permanently and that 300,000 jobs would be lost in the sector.

In addition to its “Safe Table” program, the restaurant association is also supporting a scheme called Tu Cocina Local (Your Local Kitchen), which provides training to staff at fondas (small, informal eateries), taquerías (taco restaurants) and torterías (sandwich shops) on the implementation of health measures that reduce the risk of coronavirus infection and make diners feel safe.

One factor that could encourage Baja California residents to dine out is that active coronavirus cases in the state decreased 41% last week compared to the week before.

There were 387 active cases in the state on September 14, according to official data, 270 fewer than a week prior.

Baja California Health Minister Alonso Pérez Rico said that all municipalities in the state dropped in the national rankings for active cases. He highlighted that Tijuana dropped to 47th from 38th, Ensenada fell to 71st place from 65th and Mexicali improved its ranking to 87th from 71st.

Tijuana now has fewer than 200 active cases while Ensenada and Mexicali both have fewer than 100.

Coronavirus cases and deaths reported by day. milenio

The Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa currently has the highest number of active coronavirus cases among Mexico’s more than 2,400 municipalities followed by Monterrey, Nuevo León, and Mérida, Yucatán. All three municipalities have more than 700 active cases.

Baja California’s accumulated case tally currently stands at 18,360, the 13th highest total among Mexico’s 32 states, and its Covid-19 death toll is 3,322, the fifth highest total in the country.

Mexicali’s death toll is 1,537, the fourth highest total among Mexico’s municipalities after Puebla city and the Mexico City boroughs of Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero.

The national accumulated case tally stands at 676,487 with 4,771 new cases registered on Tuesday. The official death toll is 71,678 with 629 additional fatalities reported.

Mexico City leads the country for accumulated cases and Covid-19 deaths with 113,118 of the former and 11,318 of the latter.

Source: El Imparcial (sp)

Morena legislator proposes changing Mexico’s official name

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 16, 2020

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A federal lawmaker is proposing that Mexico change its official name from the United Mexican States to simply Mexico, just as former president Felipe Calderón did in the last days of his presidency in 2012.

The name change would also mean changing the name of the Constitution and modifying 17 of its articles.

“Mexico is precisely the name that gives meaning and essence to our nation. The name of Mexico contains the idea of autonomous and independent states inside that represent a federal pact toward the outside,” said proponent Juan Martínez Flores.

Incorporating the words “United States” is no longer accurate as Mexico is not a federal republic, he says.

“Some Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Venezuela, called themselves the United States when they recently became independent, but they have already changed their names to what we call them today,” Martínez argued.

The country’s name has evolved over the years, and it was known as the Mexican Empire from 1821 to 1823 after gaining independence from Spain. The name United Mexican States was first used in the 1824 Constitution.

“Since its birth as a homeland, the term Mexico has been used, a word that comes from the Náhuatl language and is divided into two parts, metztli, which means moon, and xiclti, which means navel, therefore Mexico means ‘in the navel of the moon,’” Martínez says.

Some international organizations, such as the Organization of American States and the United Nations, have already shortened the name of the country to just Mexico, and he says Mexicans should as well. “We are known as Mexicans, and we identify ourselves culturally and historically as such and our nation simply as Mexico.”

When former president Calderón attempted to change the country’s name eight years ago, he used a different argument.

“It’s time that we Mexicans retake the beauty and simplicity of our motherland’s name: Mexico. (It’s) a name that … identifies us throughout the world and makes us proud,” Calderón said at the time.

When Mexico began calling itself the “United Mexican States” it did so because the United States of America was seen as a beacon of democracy and political and administrative organization, Calderón said. But “the name of our country can no longer continue to emulate other countries.”

Calderón had first proposed the name change as a congressman in 2003 but the proposal didn’t make it to a vote.

Mexico City officially changed its name in 2016 when then-president Enrique Peña Nieto officially declared the creation of Mexico City, dropping the Federal District moniker, or DF, its initials in Spanish.

More recently, another Morena politician has proposed changing the name of the president’s home state from Tabasco to Tabasco de López Obrador, which triggered a suggestion that the state of Sinaloa be renamed as well.

“How about Sinaloa de Chapo Guzmán?” asked Mexico News Daily contributor Carlisle Johnson.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Colima seeks reparation for damages caused by CFE lagoon spills

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 16, 2020

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The CFE's thermoelectric plant in Manzanillo has been accused of two oil spills into the Cuyutlán Lagoon.

The governor of Colima wants the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to explain the causes of two fuel oil spills in the Cuyutlán Lagoon and guarantee that such incidents do not occur again.

In addition, José Ignacio Peralta Sánchez has tasked the CFE with repairing the environmental and social damage caused by the spill and compensate fishermen and fish farmers for their losses.

The president met with fishermen and shrimp, crab and oyster farmers in Manzanillo who were affected by two fuel spills from the Manuel Álvarez thermoelectric plant on August 12 and 29.

Peralta said the damage occurred in a 500-meter-long area of mangroves, affecting the livelihood of 121 fishermen and 44 marine farmers. Birds and fish were killed in the spills.

María del Carmen Velasco Chávez, president of a Cuyutlán Lagoon fishing cooperative, said that members have not been able to work for the past 15 days due to damaged equipment and polluted waters.

“The harvest or sowing cycle was lost along with all the food that it would have given us. We are talking about 3 million pesos [US $143,000],” Velasco said. “We cannot carry out our shrimp and fish farming because they are dying. The mangroves are where the fish reproduce, where they spawn, where they are protected from predators.”

Peralta said that for two weeks local CFE officials have not responded to his invitation to inspect the damage and called the lack of response unacceptable. “It is a matter of great importance because we are talking about a severe impact in many ways,” the governor said and announced that he would take the matter up with CFE director Manuel Bartlett.

Fishermen from various cooperatives protested in front of the CFE facilities on September 2 and temporarily blocked access to the thermoelectric plant.

Efforts have been made to have the CFE plant convert from fuel oil to less polluting natural gas since the Felipe Calderón administration, but they have been rejected due to the higher cost of natural gas.

Source: AF Medios (sp)

It’s a magical place and a beautiful pueblo. But the mole is the main attraction

By

Joseph Sorrentino

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September 16, 2020

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Marta Álvarez and Luis Alvarado of Mole Don Luis.

San Pedro Atocpan is a beautiful little pueblo and one of a dozen in Milpa Alta, a borough of Mexico City. It’s been designated as a barrio mágico — a magical neighborhood — and has a lovely church that was dedicated in 1680, a pretty park in the town’s center and winding cobblestone streets made for walking.

But none of these are what draws people to the pueblo. What draws them is mole, one of Mexico’s most revered dishes, because San Pedro is billed as the Mole Capital of Mexico.

Mole had a fairly humble beginning, one that stretches back at least as far as the Aztecs who made a simple sauce called chilmole. “It is a salsa of just chiles and tomatoes and almost no spices,” said Luís Gutiérrez Romero, a San Pedro resident who has researched mole’s history for many years. “It is still very common in Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala.”

According to Gutierrez, mole’s transition from a simple sauce to a thick and flavorful version began after the Conquest. The Spaniards brought nuts and spices with them that were new to indigenous groups who soon began incorporating them into their foods. “This was especially true in Puebla,” said Gutiérrez.

“Puebla had an important role in the development of mole. It is at the crossroads of México [state], Veracruz, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala. Puebla still provides chiles for our mole.”

Mole is made by hand at Aurelia Arroyo's restaurant, Jacal de María Candelaria. — Mole is made by hand at Aurelia Arroyo’s restaurant, Jacal de María Candelaria.

There are several competing stories (or legends) that purport to tell how the mole we know today came to be.

The most popular story is that Sor Andrea de Asunción, a nun in a convent in Puebla, created it in 1680 (although some claim this actually happened in the 16^th century). Supposedly, a bishop was making a surprise visit and the nun had a “celestial inspiration” that led to her creating mole. Others claim it was a monk who first created the sauce.

The most fanciful story is that wind blew a bunch of ingredients into a large pot and they somehow combined perfectly to make mole. “These versions are pretty but not true,” said Gutiérrez. “I believe the process of making mole had its origins in fiestas and where people prepared food, in the pueblos, especially in Tlaxcala and some pueblos close to San Martín. I believe with all this mixing, people tried different things and I believe mole continued to change from the 16th through the 18th century.”

He estimates that there are over 200 different kinds of mole, but there’s no way to be sure. In San Pedro, popular varieties include red, green, almond and pipian. Every pueblo and, really, every household has its own special recipe. Making mole from scratch is quite a task since each kind has at least 20 ingredients and requires two or three days of work.

Epitacia Juárez Casteñada, an 80-year-old resident of San Gregorio Atlapulco, is one of a handful of people who still make mole at home. Her specialty is mole rojo — red mole.

First, she thoroughly washes two kinds of chiles — mulato and pasilla, removes the seeds, dries the chiles and then takes them to be ground. Then she toasts and grinds a handful of five different nuts by hand using a molcajete, a bowl made from volcanic stone. This, she said, imparts flavor to the mole. Next, she grinds eight different spices, also by hand, adding them to the nuts, forming a powder that she then fries using lard or oil, finally thinning the resulting paste with chicken stock. Clearly, a lot of work. Fortunately, San Pedro’s streets are lined with restaurants and stores serving up mole.

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Jacal de María Candelaria is one of the few restaurants where mole is still made by hand. “It is artisanal mole,” said Aurelia Arroyo Martínez, the owner.

“With industrial production, machines are used to grind the ingredients. With artisanal, it is all made by hand. There is a big difference in flavor. We have a grinder made of [black volcanic] stones, which give the mole a distinct flavor and consistency. We also taste the mole as we make it; you cannot do that with industrial production.”

She admits that making artisanal mole is a lot of work since her moles have as many as 36 ingredients but, she said, “Vale la pena.“ It is worth it.

All of the stores offer mole as both a powder and paste. “The only difference is that the powdered mole lasts longer,” explained Luis Juan Alvarado Retana, owner of Mole Don Luis. His store uses recipes handed down from his mother, with only a few changes. “We have made them a little sweeter, a little less acidic.”

Marta Álvarez Cordera, his wife, gave me a short course on how to prepare mole. “Many cooks brown the mole first,” she said as she cooked using a clay pot known as a cazuela. “Some fry a little tomato in oil before adding the mole and browning it. When that is done, simply add water or stock and mix it until you have the consistency you like.”

In Mexico, the majority of cooks use lard instead of oil for frying and chicken stock to thin the mole but vegetable oil and vegetable stock work fine. As Arroyo said, “Preparing mole is more art than science.”

Epitacia Juárez is one of a handful of people who make mole at home.

Once done, the mole can be poured over enchiladas or rice or pretty much anything you enjoy eating. The most popular item on the menu in San Pedro is turkey leg with mole spooned over it.

A vegetarian option is to steam up some vegetables, add them to the mole and pour the mix over rice. Toss in some frijoles and you’ve got a complete meal.

San Pedro’s Feria Nacional de Mole has been held in October each year since 1976. It’s held in a park just outside the pueblo and features dozens of restaurants and stores. It’s a great place to sample the wide variety of moles available.

This year’s version is scheduled for October 3-25 but with the uncertainties due to the coronavirus, it’s best to check before heading to the pueblo.

Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. He lives in San Gregorio Atlapulco, Mexico City.

‘The coronavirus pandemic won’t stop us from dancing!’

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 16, 2020

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dancers — Dancing 'the most Mexican thing we have.'

Mexico City’s fabled dance halls have been shuttered for five months but for some lovers of cumbia and salsa, the lack of infrastructure created an opportunity to improvise.

That’s what 52-year-old Martha Rivero Maldonado and her friends did, and now they meet up in San Juan Park to cut a rug, where more than 100 people have chipped in to purchase a speaker.

Yesterday especially Rivero felt she could not let the holiday pass without dancing. She made lunch for her employers and left work in the afternoon headed for the park, fixing a patriotic ribbon in her hair during the metro ride, and wearing red, white and green necklaces.

She’s been dancing all her life, and won’t let the coronavirus stop her.

“I try to dance only with one partner, and we have antibacterial gel that we put on every time we finish dancing. We also wear face masks,” she explained.

“This ugly pandemic has taken many things from us, but it could not take away the most Mexican thing that Mexicans have: dancing,” she said while putting on her makeup as the train neared San Juan Park.

“This is our life, dancing. It takes away my depression and we need that now. People, relatives and friends, have died. We have to move on,” she said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Organizers of parties where Covid infection occurs subject to 12 years in jail

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 16, 2020

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This is how independence celebrations normally look in Querétaro. As in most states, they were canceled this year.

Anyone who hosts a party in Querétaro where someone becomes infected with the coronavirus will be charged with the crime of “risk of contagion” and subject to up to 12 years in prison.

Government Secretary Juan Martín Granados Torres made the announcement Tuesday as a staunch reminder to those who were contemplating celebrating Mexico’s Independence Day holiday with friends in mass gatherings.

“If indeed a person, in the normal period established by medicine, tests positive for Covid and the doctors establish that that was the place of infection, then the person responsible for any meeting or any concentration of people could incur the crime of risk of contagion sanctioned by our penal code,” he said.

The law states that “those who, knowing that they suffer from a serious illness in an infectious period, without the victim or offended person being aware of this circumstance, endanger the health of another, through sexual relations or another transmissible medium will be imposed the penalties provided for the crime of injury.” Exceptions include spouses and common-law partners.

Penalties range from three months to 12 years in prison, depending on the severity of the circumstances.

The Ministry of Health made the modifications to the law on September 11, when it announced the suspension of Independence Day celebrations in the state and suggested that municipal governments apply necessary measures to avoid contagion.

Granados said he hopes the severe penalties will act as a deterrent in the state, where businesses selling alcohol, including restaurants, were ordered to close at 6 p.m. yesterday and today to avoid crowds of patriotic revelers.

“It is not strictly speaking a dry law but a regulation in terms of limiting the hours of sale and consumption in the establishments that I have referred to because this situation is potentially generating behavior in citizens that can provoke and activate or encourage greater contagion,” Granados stated.

Authorities will be especially vigilant in border areas of the state where police will break up parties, Granados said.

As of Tuesday, Querétaro had recorded 7,784 accumulated cases of the coronavirus and 891 deaths.

Source: El Universal (sp)

OECD lowers its 2020 Mexico growth forecast to -10.2% from June’s -7.5%

By

MND Staff

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September 16, 2020

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has downgraded its 2020 economic forecast for Mexico to a contraction of 10.2% down from -7.5% in June.

Among G20 counties, Mexico is predicted to suffer the fourth deepest recession after South Africa, Argentina and Italy. The OECD predicts that India will suffer an economic contraction equal to that forecast for Mexico.

The only G20 country where the economy is forecast to grow this year is China with GDP to increase 1.8%, according to the OECD. Global GDP is predicted to decline 4.5% in 2020, a 1.5% improvement compared to the OECD’s June forecast.

In its Interim Economic Outlook report, titled Coronavirus: Living with uncertainty, the OECD said that output declines in 2020 in Mexico, Argentina, India and South Africa are projected to be even deeper than anticipated earlier due to “the prolonged spread of the virus, high levels of poverty and informality, and stricter confinement measures for an extended period.”

Mexico currently has the seventh highest coronavirus case tally in the world and fourth highest Covid-19 death toll, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The Mexican economy contracted 18.7% in the second quarter of 2020, a period that included two full months – April and May – when federally-mandated coronavirus restrictions were in force.

The government’s support for business amid the economic crisis has been extremely limited, triggering criticism from the private sector and many analysts.

While the outlook for this year is gloomy, the OECD predicts that Mexico’s growth figures will be back in the black in 2021 with GDP forecast to increase 3%. That forecast is unchanged from June.

For Mexico’s North American trade partners, the United States and Canada, the OECD is predicting contractions of 3.8% and 5.8%, respectively, in 2020, and growth of 4% in both countries next year.

The organization said its projections assume that a coronavirus vaccine will not become widely available until late in 2021.

Published Wednesday, the OECD forecasts come three weeks after Mexico’s central bank said in a report that GDP could contract by 12.8% in 2020 in a worse-case scenario.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Plane raffle has met its goal, says AMLO, but 30% of tickets remain unsold

By

MND Staff

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September 15, 2020

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The presidential plane, a Boeing Dreamliner, is still up for sale.

One of the more surreal episodes of President López Obrador’s 21-month-old government is coming to a close. The draw in the raffle for the presidential plane, in which the aircraft is not in fact the prize, began at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and was expected to take a few hours to complete.

The president announced Monday that enough tickets had been sold to cover the 2-billion-peso (US $95 million) prize pool, made up of 100 prizes of 20 million pesos (US $950,000) each.

“We met the goal to obtain [the money for] the prizes, that’s resolved so the raffle will take place [Tuesday] ” López Obrador said.

In fact, the money raised from the sale of the raffle tickets was never intended to be used to pay out the combined prize pool, which is supposed to be representative of the value of the plane, although its real worth has been estimated at $130 million.

The funds for the prizes were actually transferred to the grandiloquently named Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People by the federal Attorney General’s Office in February. The money was obtained via a successful lawsuit against a company found guilty of defrauding the previous federal government.

Indeed, López Obrador, after telling reporters that the funds needed to pay the prizes had been raised, contradicted himself by saying that all of the raffle revenue would be used to purchase medical equipment.

“Everything we’re getting from the sale of tickets is to purchase health equipment, equipment for hospitals. … Next week, we’ll present a report about the money obtained, and all that money will be [used] to buy medical equipment,” he said.

The president said the government will buy the equipment via a tendering process and that a small plaque will be placed on each purchase that reads: “Resources obtained from the presidential plane raffle. Contribution of the people 2020.”

López Obrador first floated the idea to raffle off his predecessor’s luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner in January.

He had described the jet, which was actually purchased by the government of former president Felipe Calderón but not delivered until after his term ended, as an “insult to the people” and an “example of the excesses” of his predecessors. A year ago he presented infographics that showed that the government of ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto had spent more than 1 million pesos for supplies for a single flight on Mexico’s equivalent of the United States’ Air Force One.

The president pledged repeatedly that he would never step foot on it.

Shortly after he took office in late 2018, López Obrador put the plane up for sale but with the market for opulent, expensive aircraft undoubtedly small, it failed to sell.

As a result, AMLO, as the president is best known, came up with the idea of offloading it via a raffle but in February shattered ordinary Mexicans’ dreams of owning the plane, announcing that a lucky draw would indeed go ahead but that cash prizes rather than the jet itself would be up for grabs.

That decision came after the idea that an ordinary person could become the owner of a $130-million plane – and have the means to pay for its hangaring and operational expenses – was widely ridiculed on social media.

The president’s raffle plan became something of a national joke, with social media users musing about what they would use the plane for should they win it and wondering where they might be able to park it.

Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., told The New York Times that López Obrador’s efforts to keep his promise to get rid of the plane became more elaborate, expensive and just “too weird” over time.

“If this was an episode of Black Mirror, it wouldn’t make it to the screen,” he said.

Black Mirror is a dystopian television series that explores a wide range of weird and wonderful premises.

Apparently undeterred by the criticism his raffle idea faced, and it becoming the brunt of countless jokes and memes, López Obrador forged ahead with his plan and turned his focus to the most important job in any raffle: selling tickets.

In February, he hosted a dinner at which he asked some 150 company owners, chief executives and business leaders to commit to purchasing large bundles of tickets.

The president has also repeatedly urged citizens to buy tickets for the draw and even broke his promise never to enter the plane when he stepped aboard last month to record a video designed to boost slow sales.

But despite his best efforts to get Mexico’s business elite as well as ordinary citizens to buy the raffle tickets at 500 pesos (about US $24) a pop, millions remained unsold, prompting López Obrador to announce last week that the government would spend 500 million pesos (US $23.7 million) on 1 million cachitos, as the lottery tickets are known in Mexican Spanish.

Still, as of Monday, 30% of 6 million tickets – 1.8 million in total – hadn’t been sold, the newspaper Reforma reported. Members of the general public have only purchased just over 1 million tickets since they went on sale in February, it said.

Reforma also pointed out that none of the revenue raised by the raffle will be used to offset the costs that the unsold plane, which returned to Mexico from a hangar at the Southern California Logistics Airport in July, continues to generate.

“Not a single peso from the raffle will be used to pay for the purchase, maintenance and storage of the presidential plane, which is [still] stranded without a solid purchase offer 21 months after it was put on the market,” the newspaper said.

Critics say that the entire raffle spectacle is part of efforts to divert attention at a time when Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll continues to mount – it currently stands at more than 71,000 – and the economy is facing its worst crisis since the Great Depression. López Obrador’s brother is also embroiled in a possible corruption scandal, which is not a good look for a president who has pledged to eliminate the scourge and is looking to lead the ruling Morena party to success at federal midterm and state gubernatorial elections in 2021.

Carlos Elizondo, a government professor at the Tec de Monterrey university, told The New York Times that part of the motivation for the raffle was to “keep alive the idea of the abusive political class of the past” and portray the current administration as “the austere ones.”

But “along the way,” he added, “he’s gotten entangled in an increasingly ridiculous exit strategy.”

Paula Ordorica, a columnist for the El Universal newspaper and a television host, told the Times that the plane is a “symbol” that the president is “not willing to let go.”

“The two rallying cries of this president are the fight against corruption, and austerity, and the plane allows him to address both,” she said.

Mexico News Daily

Mexico edges out Brazil as chief supplier of orange juice to US

By

Susy Buchanan

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September 15, 2020

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More than half of Mexico's orange harvest comes from Veracruz.

Mexico has once again surpassed Brazil as the major supplier of orange juice to the United States.

Although the dollar amount of orange juice shipped to the U.S. between January and June is half as much as it was last year, Mexico exported US $142 million of juice in the first six months of 2020, considerably more than Brazil’s US $91 million.

Mexico exported $333 million worth of juice last year, beating Brazil by $3 million.

A recent study by CitrusBR, an organization representing the three largest Brazilian exporters of orange juice, showed that sales from Mexico to the United States have skyrocketed since 2008, when U.S. customs eliminated tariffs on imports of concentrated and frozen orange juice from Mexico as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In contrast, U.S. imports of orange juice from Brazil pay a tariff of US $415.86 per ton.

In 1993, when the U.S. tax on juice from all sources was still US $490.02, Brazil exported 144,500 tons of concentrated and frozen orange juice to the United States. That volume has dropped to just 71,100 tons in 2019. According to CitrusBR, Mexico’s exports of concentrated and frozen orange juice went from 9,800 to 74,700 tons in the same period.

“With a good quality product, similar to that produced in Florida, and land freight around 50% cheaper than Brazilian maritime logistics, the Mexican product continues to gain [ground],” Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported in reference to the CitrusBR study.

The United States Department of Agriculture forecasts that Mexico’s exports for the 2019-2020 season will total 104,850 tons, as drought has decimated the orange production affecting the supplies available for processing.

The vast majority of concentrated and frozen orange juice production in Mexico is destined for export to the United States. There is some small trade with Europe, depending on prices. Likewise, Mexico imports a small amount of orange juice for supermarkets or small processors that have their own juice brands.

Mexico has 342,885 hectares of orange orchards, 55% of which are located in Veracruz. Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo and Sonora also produce oranges.

This year the heat and drought are expected to drop Mexico’s orange production per hectare by 34%. Most of Mexico’s orange trees are older, and therefore harder hit by the drought than other fruits.

Orange varieties grown in Mexico include Valencia, Lane Late Navel, and Navelina. Valencia oranges ripen in December and are the most widely produced variety in Mexico for juice.

Orange is the main citrus fruit consumed in Mexico, with per capita consumption of 37.4 kilograms. Mexicans mainly use oranges for fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Source: El Economista (sp)