López Obrador said at this morning's press conference that the border wall has never come up in talks with US President Trump.
President López Obrador discussed migration and job creation in Mexico and Central America during a telephone call yesterday with United States President Donald Trump.
“In respectful and friendly terms, we spoke about the migration issue and the possibility of implementing a joint program of development and job creation in Central America and our country,” López Obrador wrote on his Twitter account.
The conversation between the two presidents followed an announcement by Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard earlier this week that Mexico will invest more than US $30 billion over the next five years on a Comprehensive Development Plan with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador aimed at curbing migration to the United States.
López Obrador has called on the United States to contribute to the plan, which Ebrard said last month would need to be on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt western Europe after World War II.
Thousands of Central American migrants have entered Mexico in large groups known as caravans over the past two months to travel to Mexico’s northern border and seek asylum in the United States.
Several thousand are now stranded in Tijuana and other border cities, where many will face a frustratingly long wait for the opportunity to plead their case for protection to United States authorities.
Trump has described the caravans as an “invasion” and frequently urged Mexico to do more to stop them from reaching the border.
Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez said yesterday that the government will stop illegal entries at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala but gave no detail about how it would achieve it.
“In the south there will be only one entry, on the bridge,” she said. “Anyone who wants to enter illegally, we are going to say: ‘Get in line and you can enter our country.”
In spite of the contentious migration issue and their position on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the relationship between López Obrador and Trump has been mostly cordial.
Two days after his swearing-in on December 1, Trump congratulated López Obrador in a Twitter message and declared that “we will work well together for many years to come!”
Mexico’s first leftist president in a generation has stressed the importance of the relationship with the United States and said that he wants to maintain respectful dialogue.
Neither the United States president nor the White House commented on yesterday’s telephone conversation but Trump returned to Twitter this morning to comment on the issue that has come to characterize the strained relations with Mexico during his administration.
“I often stated, ‘One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.’ This has never changed. Our new [trade] deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much better than the old, very costly & anti-USA NAFTA deal, that just by the money we save, MEXICO IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!” he wrote.
At his daily press conference this morning, López Obrador said he has never spoken to Trump about the border wall issue.
He echoed the sentiment in his Twitter message yesterday, stating that his conversation with the U.S. president was “good” and “friendly” and stressing his intent to maintain a relationship of respect.
López Obrador also said that Trump had invited him to Washington and that there was a possibility he would go but added that “there must be a motive” for any meeting.
The federal government sweetened its buyback offer this week for bonds issued for the cancelled Mexico City airport project but investors once again rejected it, although they said it was an improvement on last week’s proposal.
The Secretariat of Finance presented the new offer Tuesday, increasing the repurchase price for US $1.8 billion in bonds from US $900 for US $1,000 invested to an even US $1,000 plus accrued and unpaid interest.
It also said that a consent payment would be made to investors who agree to the deal by December 19.
The offer, which closes on January 4, also added a new default trigger if any new airport begins operations within a 70-kilometer radius of Mexico City’s existing airport.
The offer was well received by bond markets with the US $3-billion bond due in 2047 spiking to as high as 93 cents to the dollar yesterday compared to 83 cents after the original December 3 offer.
But an ad hoc group representing holders of bonds worth more than half the US $6 billion in debt issued by the Mexico City Airport Trust (MexCAT) to partially fund the now-scrapped US $13-billion project said in a statement yesterday that while “the amended proposal makes incremental improvements, fundamental problems . . . .”
It also objected to a new timetable that is half that of the original proposal issued on December 3, suggesting that the early-tender deadline should be extended to at least December 21.
The group, represented by international law firm Hogan Lovells, claimed that it was not consulted on the amended offer.
Instead, the Santa Lucía Airforce Base in México state is to be converted for commercial aviation use and the existing Mexico City airport and that in Toluca will be upgraded.
Deputy finance secretary Arturo Herrera told reporters after this week’s offer was made that the bonds were to be repaid via funds collected in passenger taxes and that the default clause was designed to ensure that there would be enough passenger revenue to do so even with a multi-airport system in operation.
But the ad hoc group of bondholders said that the new proposal’s terms “are insufficient to compensate for the reduction or complete elimination of passenger volume at the [Mexico City] Benito Juárez airport to be expected over time as a result of the opening of such alternative airports.”
It argued that without “additional collateral (such as from alternative airports or otherwise) to compensate for the removal of the originally agreed Texcoco collateral protection, bondholders remain without effective substitute sources of payment.”
The statement concluded by saying that “the Ad Hoc Bondholder Group, consisting of a group of large international investment institutions, still desires, and looks forward to, discussing its concerns and proposed resolutions with MexCAT.”
Mario Castro, an economist and vice-president at Nomura Securities, said “the new deal shows a willingness to negotiate by the Mexican government and will likely prevent a further deterioration of sentiment, but it doesn’t fix the damage that was done by the initial cancellation of the airport.”
Cemex wouldn't say how much cement prices will go up.
The price of concrete will increase by 20% on January 1, an industry group has announced.
The Mexican Association of Independent Concrete Producers (AMCI), which represents companies that make 70% of the material nationwide, said in a statement yesterday that a range of factors are behind the price hike.
ACMI president Emanuel García Villarreal pointed to the rising cost of cement and aggregates including sand and limestone as well as higher prices for diesel and electricity.
“This increase . . . is due to the rise in 2018 of all our inputs . . .” he said.
Jorge Pérez, spokesman for Nuevo Léon-based Cemex, the second largest building materials company in the world and a large supplier to independent concrete producers, declined to say when and by how much it would increase its prices for cement.
“Cemex will increase its prices in Mexico according to the inflation of our inputs, which could vary depending on the geographic area,” he said.
However, Javier Fernández, CEO of concrete producer Mecasa, said he had been informed that Cemex’s cement prices would increase by 12% to 13% from January 1.
Cement and diesel contribute to 50% of the overall cost of producing concrete, he explained.
Víctor Salazar, director of real estate development company Clúster de Vivienda de Nuevo León, urged concrete producers to reconsider raising their prices by such a significant amount due to the damage it will cause to the construction sector, which is already confronted with rising costs.
He said that the increase went above inflation and producers’ price indices.
The head of the Nuevo León branch of the National Chamber for Housing Development (Canadevi), Marco Salazar, said “the increase in the price of concrete concerns us but we hope that it doesn’t materialize in a generalized way.”
He added that the exchange rate could be another factor that affects the price of new housing but nevertheless predicted that 50,000 new dwellings will be built in Nuevo León next year.
“We are very hopeful that economic uncertainty won’t increase in 2019,” Salazar said.
According to the National Statistics Agency (Inegi), construction costs rose by 10.23% between January and November, the biggest increase for the same period over the past decade.
Cement prices increased between 3% and 9.9% in the first nine months of the year, depending on the supplier, but respective 30% and 28% increases in the cost of steel and wire rods have contributed even more to rising building costs.
AMLO has declared himself against transgenic products.
President López Obrador’s commitment to not allow the use of genetically-modified (GM) organisms has been called into question by two non-governmental organizations, including Greenpeace.
In his inauguration speech on December 1 the new president pledged that the use of transgenic products, such as genetically-modified seeds, would not be permitted in Mexico under his government.
However, López Obrador’s appointments of Alfonso Romo as his chief of staff and Víctor Villalobos as agriculture secretary have raised eyebrows among GM opponents.
Both men have been involved in organizations that support the GM food industry.
Romo was the founder and CEO of the company Seminis, a transgenic seeds pioneer that was sold to United States agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto for US $400 million.
Villalobos was previously the head of CIBIOGEM, a federal government agency that develops policies for the safe use of genetically modified organisms.
María Colín, legal adviser for Greenpeace México, questioned whether Romo and Villalobos – who she said “come from a long career of promoting genetically modified organisms” – would “really have the will” to follow through with López Obrador’s pledge.
She added that the government needs to provide more details about how it plans to go about prohibiting the use of transgenic products and clarify if “everything is going to be banned or just corn.”
Adelita San Vicente, director of the Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life) Foundation, an organization dedicated to the conservation of corn in its traditional form, also said that the presence of Romo and Villalobos within the upper echelons of government was cause for concern but pointed out that there are also new officials who have spoken out against GM foods.
They include María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, head of the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt), and Víctor Suárez, who was named undersecretary for food self-sufficiency.
“. . . The doctor Álvarez-Buylla has been important in the fight . . . against genetically modified organisms because she’s provided us with scientific information,” San Vicente said.
Planting GM corn in Mexico has been prohibited since 2013, pending the outcome of a lawsuit. Álvarez-Buylla has advocated the ban be made permanent.
Criminals who operated in the northern border states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas have been sentenced to hefty prison terms.
David Rosales Guzmán, identified as the Gulf Cartel leader in Monterrey, Nuevo León, has been ordered to spend to 53 years behind bars.
Also known as “El Comandante Diablo,” Rosales was found guilty of organized crime, kidnapping, homicide, crimes against health and carrying an unauthorized firearm.
He was arrested in 2012 for the murder of two men whose bodies were hung from an overpass. He was also linked to an attack on a bar in Monterrey in which 14 people were killed.
In Tamaulipas, a man identified only as Benedick N. was sentenced to 90 years for a kidnapping that took place early last year.
A complaint filed by the victim’s family led to his rescue and the apprehension of the kidnapper.
The New York trial of former drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzmán, seated just to the left of the map on the wall.
A drug trafficker testified at the New York trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán that he spent millions of dollars buying professional Mexican soccer teams.
Tirso Martínez Sánchez, nicknamed El Futbolista, told jurors Monday that he was the owner of teams in Querétaro, Celaya, Irapuato, La Piedad and Mérida, all of which were bought with the proceeds of distributing drugs in the United States for Mexican cartels.
The trafficker, who according to his own testimony worked for both El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel and the Juárez Cartel between 1995 and 2003, said he bought the Venados club in Mérida, Yucatán, for between US $600,000 and $700,000 and the Reboceros club in La Piedad, Michoacán, for US $2.2 million.
Martínez added that he sold the latter club in 2004 for $10 million, explaining that he made a $4 million net profit after paying off players and other employees.
Once the Mexican Football Federation became aware of his ownership of soccer teams in 2006, the witness said, it offered to buy his interests in the clubs for $10 million.
In just three years between 2000 and 2003, Martínez’s trafficking activities are estimated to have netted him between $40 million and $50 million.
But the witness said that he lost between $2 million and $3 million betting on cockfights held at palenques, or cockfight rings, in several Mexican cities.
With his remaining riches, Martínez said, he bought one restaurant in Tijuana and another in the state of Illinois, a car dealership in Los Angeles, four clothing stores and a light plane and cars, among other purchases.
“I spent all my money betting on cocks, horses, properties, cars, houses, parties and women,” the 51-year-old said.
He told jurors that he only had five assets left – a house, a ranch and three other properties – all located in Mexico.
Martínez also testified that he had collaborated with Guzmán on the operation of a train route that transported cocaine from Mexico to the New York area. He said that El Chapo “invented” the route that terminated in a New Jersey warehouse.
The witness said he met Guzmán after the former drug lord’s first escape from prison in 2001 and estimated that during the time he worked with him, the Sinaloa Cartel earned between $500 million and $800 million in cocaine sales in the United States.
Martínez told the court that he stopped working for the cartel in 2003 because he believed that the police were closing in on him, after which he said that he feared that patas cortas (short legs), as he called Guzmán, would have him killed.
Arrested in Mexico in 2014, Martínez was extradited to the United States the following year where he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and importation charges.
He, like other cartel witnesses who have appeared at Guzmán’s trial, hopes to receive a reduction to his prison sentence.
If convicted of crimes including trafficking, criminal conspiracy and money laundering, Guzmán faces a probable sentence of life imprisonment. The trial continues.
Hijacked trucks can be seen on the grounds of the Michoacán school.
Students at a teacher training school in Morelia, Michoacán, hijacked several vehicles yesterday in a protest against the state government.
Masked students enrolled at the Vasco de Quiroga Normal School in Tiripetío nabbed five trucks and three buses on the Pátzcuaro-Morelia highway, ordering the drivers out and commandeering the vehicles.
The newspaper El Universal reported that aerial footage it obtained showed the eight vehicles were being kept on the school grounds, where students looted the trucks’ cargo.
A student who asked to remain anonymous initially denied that any vehicles were being kept on the school’s premises but then explained that the hijacking was in protest against the government for not releasing funds for the school’s maintenance and for scholarships for 540 students.
The student said that some of the hijacked vehicles were released when negotiations with the state government started.
Students in Guerrero probably hold the record for the largest number of hijacked vehicles. An estimated 500 were stolen during protests over the disappearance of 43 teaching students in Iguala, Guerrero.
Teachers have also engaged in the practice. In 2016, teachers built up an impressive storage lot of 75 stolen vehicles in Nahuatzen, Michoacán. They were among 200 that authorities believed were stolen in protests in the state against the 2012 education reforms.
Over 4,000 people who arrived in migrant caravans have applied for refugee status in Mexico.
The Mexican Commission for Assistance to Refugees (Comar) is swamped with a backlog of more than 48,000 applications, nearly half of which date back to 2017.
The number of refugee applications received four years ago was 2,137, but this year is expected to close with more than 26,000 from migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, said Comar’s new chief, Andrés Ramírez Silva, calling it a drastic increase.
Among this year’s applications are 4,721 filed by travelers in the migrant caravans that have entered Mexico since October.
” . . . Comar is in a very complicated position, in terms of its finances and operational capabilities,” Ramírez said, explaining that the massive increase in applications has not been matched with a budget increase.
Ramírez said he has asked for more money but an insufficient budget had not been the only problem.
The previous authorities were not adequately prepared to process the applications, he said.
“That’s the entrance,” said my taxi driver, pointing at a cement drainage ditch that sloped downward into the sub-tropical jungle.
“That’s the entrance?” I asked and he nodded and started his engine.
Carefully, in my flipflops, beach bag slung around my shoulder, I stepped sideways down the steep trail that came after the drainage ditch, down to the sea. I came out from the cover of trees on to the tiny El Violin beach. A head bobbed a few meters out past the shore, snorkeling over the reef, a family of three sat on the other side of the rock line that divided the beach in half.
Beside them there was nothing but sun, sand, rocks and the occasional passing boat. Ducking my head under the water I could hear the crackling sound made by the reef nearby, and fall leaves, beaten baby-soft by the tide, floated around me.
This was just one of the virgin beaches I explored last month in Huatulco on Mexico’s Oaxaca coast. Huatulco is a series of bays, beaches and small towns that make up a region developed into a tourist destination in the mid-1980s.
La Bocana, one of many beaches in Huatulco.
It was not on my radar until I was invited to come down and see this little slice of paradise for myself, and I was hesitant about what I would find. Searching online for information I wanted — the best places to eat, the most isolated beaches, the coolest tours — was an exercise in futility. Now that I am back I can say that Huatulco is delightful, with lots to offer if you know where to look.
Eating
I really don’t want to travel anywhere where I can’t get good food, so getting some local restaurant recommendations was my top priority upon arrival. Mexican beach destinations are notorious for strings of identical oceanfront restaurants that are pretty mediocre and/or gourmet spots that cost an arm and a leg, and still pretty mediocre.
In Huatulco I found some reasonably priced places where the food was excellent — but it did take getting off the beach.
My first stop was at El Chino, opened just a few months ago in the town of Santa Cruz. Like every place on this list El Chino is not on the beach, but the vibe is as beachy as it gets — hammocks strung from poles that frame an open-air restaurant, a palapa roof. If I could recommend two things on the menu, I beg you to try the chile de agua stuffed with marlin and the chilpachole (soup might sound too hot for 30 C weather, but just trust me).
For more light beachy fare, try La Tosta in the town of La Crucecita, a few blocks off the main plaza. They have a mixed seafood tostada (a crispy tortilla) and an octopus ceviche tostada that I am still dreaming about.
Rocoto is evening dining on Benito Juárez boulevard and is run by a Chilean-Mexican couple that have a killer coconut shrimp soup and an octopus and mushroom quinoa dish that I couldn’t even comprehend (in a good way).
A prawn dish at Mercader in Santa Cruz.
These women are serving up different specials every night centered around local seafood and ingredients. Rocoto needs to be on your list for at least one night of your vacation, but they are often packed so make a reservation or come knowing you may have to wait.
Mercader in Santa Cruz has an Asian-Mexican fusion menu, with dishes like Vietnamese rolls, a tamarind shrimp salad with tropical fruit and rice noodles, or salmon croquettes with chipotle sauce.
My last suggestion is local classic El Chacal, named after the river lobster native to Huatulco. They serve some special preparations of the little creatures there, but my favorite was grilled with butter and garlic. Also great was the fish ceviche with tomato and cucumber.
This is a homestyle place with sandy floors and a thatched roof. It sits right next to the Copalito river and any local can give you directions. A few other suggestions I got? Juanita’s Cafe on fish taco night; Cafe Viena, an Italian joint run by Italian immigrants, Che Dieguito, an Argentinian steakhouse; and Las Tlayudas de Sector E for local Oaxacan fare.
Beaches
With 36 local beaches, you can visit a different one every day for your entire vacation, which was pretty much my plan. El Violin, described above, is great for solitude and snorkeling. Cacaluta is a gorgeous beach where I can almost guarantee you’ll be alone, because it requires a short hike through Huatulco’s National Park and so isn’t very frequented by the everyday tourists.
The hike is about a 20-minute leisurely walk and can get a little swampy in places. Along the way you pass a beautiful bird estuary and you’ll see dozens of butterflies in your path. Don’t stress out if the path isn’t clearly marked, just keep heading towards the ocean. Waves here were a little stronger than some of the more mellow bays.
[wpgmza id=”120″]
El Tejon (often called El Tejoncito) is more centrally located near Chahué bay, but it also takes a small walk to get to it. A cab will drop you off at the entrance to a residential development and you have to walk in and to the left along a paved road. The entrance is an unmarked trail downward right next to a black trash bin. This is another virgin beach made for peace and quiet.
If you don’t mind other tourists the Santa Cruz bay has some of the calmest waters for swimming and there are other beaches in the bay you can reach via boat or car like La Entrega or El Órgano. Arrocito is a tiny beach to the south of Chahué marina with a beach bar with tables, umbrellas and cold beers. Tourist traffic can be heavy, but again, the waters are extremely calm for swimming.
La Bocana is a favorite of foreigners and is known for its good surf. This beach is more open ocean than the bays and so the waves are bigger and the beach stretches down further.
There are several other beaches accessible from inside the national park. They are unmarked and unnamed and so pretty isolated, but a local taxi driver can point out a few for you. My big regret was not making it to Riscallillo which is only accessible by boat but is said to be lovely. It’s also inside the national park, north of Cacaluta.
Activities
My hosts for the week, Aventura Mundo, have a bevy of local tours and adventures that they arrange for visitors including a breathtaking moonlight cruise down the Copalito river and a night kayak tour to see the local phosphorescent plankton.
For early risers, local guide Shiro Lopez (961 370 0744) offers a sunrise fishing and snorkeling tour. We went out at 5:00 one morning and were honored with a spectacular dawn and a few fish for breakfast.
Definitely catch a bird-watching tour to one of the local nature reserves (try Cornelio Ramos, 958 106 5749) and snorkel the reef, either on your own in one of the small bays or with a group. For a beach break, Aventura Mundo arranges glamping excursions to Pluma, Hidalgo, a nearby coffee-producing region about an hour and a half into the Oaxaca mountains.
General Tips
Almost everywhere you go in Huatulco by cab will cost you around 40 pesos (US $2.50) unless you are headed to one of the beaches farther from town. Santa Cruz and La Crucecita are like little towns, places like Arrocito and Chahué more like residential areas. Tangolunda bay and Conejos bay are home to the major resorts as well as some vacation rentals, mostly condos.
Having your own car is definitely the easiest way to get around, but cabs will also take you anywhere and there is a local bus that runs up and down the main boulevard.
Lastly, come to Huatulco in search of surf, turf and relaxation — this is not a place for dance clubs, high-end shopping, and lots of entertainment. It’s more a place to enjoy the sun on your face and a cold beer in your hand.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer based in Mexico City.
The new Jalisco government has been given a bloody welcome to office: more than 50 people have been murdered in the state since the weekend.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, 10 people were murdered, the newspaper El Financiero reported.
Eight of them were shot dead, including four individuals aged between 25 and 30 who were attacked inside a home in the Guadalajara neighborhood of Vicente Guerrero. A fifth person also suffered gunshot wounds at the same address and was reported to be in serious condition.
Yesterday’s homicides followed three days of violence, with at least one multiple homicide on each of Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Jalisco was identified as one of six insecurity hot spots by new federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo last week, underscoring the challenges faced by the new state government led by Enrique Alfaro Ramírez.
Data on the state government platform Seguridad Mapa shows that the number of annual homicides in Guadalajara has increased by 240% since former governor Aristóteles Sandoval took office in 2013, while there has been a 200% spike in the murder rate in the neighboring municipality of Tlaquepaque.
There have been around 1,800 homicides in Jalisco this year, a statistic which new security cabinet chief Macedonio Tamez said was cause for concern. However, he deflected responsibility for the current wave of violence.
“The red [warning] light welcomed us when we assumed office, it was already on . . . This dynamic of violence we’re experiencing is the same one that was there before we entered [government]. With this I want to explain that the situation in the state is alarming, it’s worrying and it’s forcing us to take decisions such as getting together daily to work on the issue of security,” Tamez said.
Governor Alfaro said Monday that agreements that had created the regional and metropolitan single-command police forces have expired, meaning that the state police are back on the beat.
His government plans to strengthen the Metropolitan Security Agency in order to facilitate the establishment of coordinated actions between state and federal security forces.
It will also review the management of the C5 security monitoring system that started operations two months ago, although more than 2,000 surveillance cameras are still to be installed.
Jalisco is home to Mexico’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organization – the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) – which is accused of torturing and murdering three students in Guadalajara this year and carrying out an attack on the state’s former labor secretary, among other high profile crimes.
