Mexico is now the sixth most visited country in the world, the tourism secretary said yesterday, explaining that the upsurge in violent crime has not had an impact on visitor numbers.
“So far it [tourism] hasn’t fallen. It’s grown every year. International tourism [in Mexico] is growing at 12% annually, whereas in the world it’s growing at 7%,” Enrique de la Madrid told Milenio Television.
He also said that crime hasn’t deterred domestic tourists from visiting Mexico’s beaches, magical towns and largest cities.
The tourism industry contributes to 8.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) and generates 10 million jobs, or one in every 10 in the country, the tourism secretary said.
A record 39.3 million foreign visitors came to Mexico last year, an increase of 4.2 million compared to 2016. While here, they spent just over US $21.3 billion.
Paradoxically, 2017 was also Mexico’s most violent year in at least two decades, with more than 29,000 homicides.
De la Madrid said that around 60% of foreign visitors to Mexico come from the United States, while Canada is the second largest source country. He added that Mexico needs to attract more visitors from China and Europe to continue the strong growth in the sector.
But de la Madrid also highlighted the importance of domestic tourism, explaining that for every tourism peso spent in the country, 85 centavos are spent by Mexicans.
“There are 97 million of us [Mexican tourists] and we estimate that we make around 237 million trips [annually]. National tourism is the most important [market for the industry] and we have to complement it with international tourism,” he said.
With that in mind, the tourism secretary said that protecting the nation’s tourism destinations from crime was one of Mexico’s biggest challenges and, along with promoting tourism and combating safety misconceptions, should be a priority.
De la Madrid also defended a video he circulated via his social media accounts Saturday in which he urged young people to oppose “a closed [economic] model that turns its back on the world” and shared some reflections that he said he hoped would help them “make the best decision,” presumably at the ballot box on July 1.
He said that he made the video with his own funds, on his day off, and without any equipment from the Secretariat of Tourism.
De la Madrid also said that the video wasn’t a personal attack on leading presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador but rather the economic model he proposes.
“It worries me that Mexico will no longer be a country that’s part of the world, a closed and excluding Mexico in which nobody is going to do well. I tell young people that what’s at stake are their next 65 years,” he said.
Uncertainty generated by the electoral process has had a negative impact on investment in Mexico’s tourism sector, the president of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said yesterday.
“Planned investments for the second half of the year have been halted because [investors] want to know what’s going to happen, they want to be certain there will be political and financial stability . . . .” Gloria Guevara Manzo said in an interview during the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association.
New hotels and new airline routes have been put on the back burner while the funds allocated to them have been diverted elsewhere, she continued, raising concerns about the continuation of the progress the national tourism industry has experienced over the last few years.
Without naming candidates’ names, Guevara asserted that if the country were to adopt a protectionist stance in its relations with the United States, the result would be a “disaster.”
“We need them and they need us. It would have an impact on tourism, on employment and would significantly increase poverty. We must be careful. It has been a recipe for disaster in countries that have established protectionist policies,” continued Guevara, who is Mexican.
Instead of going down the protectionist route, whoever wins the presidential election should forge a strong alliance with business owners and work with the private sector in order to create more jobs and encourage the industry’s and the country’s economic growth, she said.
“There’s too much at play for Mexico in this election, and it is fundamental to have the right policies.”
Opinion polls and forecasts suggest it is highly likely that the leader of the leftist Morena party, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will win the July 1 presidential election.
Originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Guevara was named president of the WTTC last August. Between 2010 and 2012, she served as secretary of tourism under president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
Tariffs on cheese (and other products) coming in and on metals going out.
A range of retaliatory measures against the United States’ metal tariffs took effect today, including 20% duties on U.S. pork, apples and potatoes.
Other measures Mexico imposed include 20-25% tariffs on cheese and bourbon and duties of up to 25% on steel products.
The Economy Secretariat (SE) published a full list of the U.S. products that will be affected by the new protectionist measures in the government’s official gazette, with tariffs ranging between 5% and 25%. Some further tariffs will come into force on July 5.
The Mexican peso dropped to its weakest level since February 2017 following the government’s announcement, to trade at more than 20 to the US dollar.
Many of the products targeted are produced by exporters in states that are politically important to United States President Donald Trump.
News agency Reuters said that the retaliatory tariffs could “have political implications in some hotly contested races” in the United States midterm elections in November, in which the Republican Party is seeking to maintain control of both houses of Congress.
Pork-exporting Iowa is one example of a state that could be hurt by the Trump administration’s decision and the ensuing tit-for-tat measures. Bourbon-producing Kentucky and cheese-producing Wisconsin are others.
United States’ pork exports to Mexico were worth more than US $1 billion last year, according to government data, and between 2010 and 2017, 89.2% of all pork exports to Mexico came from the U.S.
Mexico is the second biggest market for United States’ pork exports and one-third of all pork consumed domestically comes from north of the border.
Jim Heimerl, an Ohio pork producer and president of the U.S. National Pork Producers Council, said the 20% tariff on pork legs and shoulders eliminates his country’s ability to compete in the Mexican market.
“The toll on rural America from escalating trade disputes with critically important trade partners is mounting,” he wrote in a statement. “This is devastating to my family and pork producing families across the United States.”
Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said that Mexico would now “surely” look to import more pork from Europe. He also said that the products to which the new tariffs apply were chosen to limit the impact on inflation.
Heriberto Hernández, president of the Mexican Association of Pork Producers (OPORPA), said that he supports the government’s decision and didn’t expert Mexican pork prices to go up because “there are a lot of alternatives” to U.S. suppliers.
Other countries that export pork to Mexico have been allocated a collective tariff-free quota of 350,000 tonnes that will remain in effect until the end of this year.
However, one Mexican producer disagrees with Hernández’s assessment that pork prices won’t rise.
“We believe that the meat [price] will go up 15, 16% and I think that it could have an impact on consumption, reduce consumption, and that’s what worries me the most,” said Víctor Manuel Ochoa, CEO of Mexico’s largest pork producer, Granjas Carroll.
In a radio interview this morning, foreign trade undersecretary Juan Carlos Baker rejected any claim that the tariffs amount to revenge on the United States, charging instead that Mexico was simply acting within its rights.
“In no way is this [tariff list] publication revenge . . . It’s a measure that Mexico has a right to in accordance with the trade agreement to compensate for the damage caused by the [United States’] tariffs, which they set under the alleged argument of national security,” he said.
If the United States removes its tariffs, Mexico will do the same, Baker added.
The tariff dispute has further complicated already contentious and prolonged NAFTA negotiations and created further uncertainty about the future of the trilateral agreement. Canada also strongly condemned the measures and announced its own retaliatory tariffs.
But both U.S. neighbors are opposed to that possibility and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed their commitment to reaching a new trilateral deal in a telephone conversation last week.
Trade with the U.S. is particularly important to Mexico because about 80% of its exports go to its northern neighbor whereas only around 16% of U.S. exports come to Mexico.
Two-way trade is worth US $600 billion annually but the U.S. has a deficit with Mexico of around US $65 billion, which Trump has argued is evidence of unfair trade between the two countries.
Security forces at the scene of this morning's attack on police.
Seven people are dead and at least three wounded after two violent confrontations in Jalisco yesterday and today.
Armed civilians attacked a state police patrol this morning in Bajío de San José, Encarnación de Díaz, the state Attorney General’s office said. Occupants of two vehicles opened fire on the police, who returned the fire and killed seven of the attackers.
Two others were able to flee the scene.
No police were hurt in the altercation but two patrol vehicles were damaged in the gunfire.
The municipality’s public security chief was arrested in March on suspicion of collusion with criminal groups and participating in the January kidnapping of two people by a municipal police patrol.
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There were no fatalities in yesterday’s incident Ciudad Guzmán but three people were hurt after a protest by relatives of missing persons turned violent when it was allegedly infiltrated by some 300 individuals not connected with the protest.
The demonstrators were marching in the southern Jalisco town near the road to neighboring Colima when the so-called infiltrators joined in.
But soon after they circled a Navy patrol truck, trapping the personnel inside, and began damaging the truck with sticks, stones and other objects.
Meanwhile, the original protesters, who had arrived from other communities in several buses, decided to return home, their demonstration having been co-opted.
Shortly after, the hapless and trapped marines were rescued by another group of federal security forces who fired weapons into the air to disperse the attackers.
Unofficial reports said three people were wounded in the process.
The vandalized navy vehicle was left with cracked windshields and punctured tires and painted with the initials “CJNG,” those of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Attackers painted ‘CJNG’ on hood of navy patrol truck.
No arrests were made but the Jalisco Interior Secretary said personnel with the Jalisco Coordination Group had started investigating the incident.
The navy and local police remained on high alert.
Municipal officials said the navy has had an intermittent presence in Ciudad Guzmán over the past few months but residents have made no complaints of abuses.
That is not the case in the neighboring municipality of Zapotiltic, where marines have been accused of arbitrarily detaining a 17-year-old boy. He has not been seen since January.
A Chihuahua mine has resumed operations after a partial shutdown due to security concerns.
The Canadian mining company Pan American Silver said increased patrols on access roads by authorities had improved the security situation at the Dolores mine, allowing transportation of diesel fuel, cement and other supplies to the mine.
Workers at the silver and gold mine had been warned by allegedly criminal elements not to travel on the road that connects the mine in Madera with Yepachi, Sonora.
The company said it would increase the use of its private landing strip to move people to and from the mine site until the situation returns to normal.
The firm thanked the federal and state governments for their support and quick response in restoring safety on the access roads and said it was committed to continuing to work with them.
The slowdown in operations affected underground and open-pit mining and leach pad expansion, the company said, but production of silver and gold continued at normal rates due to a large reserve of ore stockpiles.
As a result, Pan American does not expect the partial shutdown to have an effect on 2018 production.
The state Attorney General’s office said it will maintain patrols around the Dolores mine to ensure the safety of mine personnel.
The Cocula dump, where the students' bodies were said to have been burned.
A federal court has ordered the creation of a truth and justice commission to undertake a new investigation into the case of 43 students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014.
Three judges of the Tamaulipas-based First Collegiate Tribunal made the decision unanimously yesterday based on the conclusion that the original investigation by the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) was flawed.
The investigation “was not prompt, effective, independent or impartial on the part of the PGR, as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ precedent and the protocols adopted by the United Nations demand,” the ruling said.
The judges also criticized the PGR for failing to follow up leads that suggested that federal security forces were complicit in the students’ disappearance and for not examining evidence that people arrested in connection with the crime were tortured.
“There is no sign that they even explored the lines of investigation that signaled participation of personnel from the Mexican Army or the Federal Police . . . And on top of that it also appears that they have not investigated the torture, which implies that the personnel to which those acts are attributed have not been investigated, among them, members of the Mexican Navy.”
The court said the truth commission will be made up of victims’ families and their representatives and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) who will together direct and oversee the work of PGR prosecutors.
The decision adds legal weight to a position long argued by critics of the investigation and effectively orders the government to scrap its entire case and start anew.
According to the government’s “historic truth” — presented by former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam on January 28, 2015 — the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa teacher training college were killed by a local drug gang after being handed over by corrupt municipal police.
Their bodies were later incinerated in the Cocula municipal dump and remains were discarded in a local river, Murillo said.
But journalists, activists, international experts, victims’ relatives and others rejected that version and questioned the role of the army in the students’ disappearance.
The New York Times said in a report published today that the government’s version never really explained the motive for the violent abductions, which left six people dead and a further 40 injured at the scene where the missing students were stopped in buses they had commandeered. The remains of only one student were identified.
Mass protests followed the students’ disappearance and the investigation into the case is widely regarded as the single biggest failing of the Enrique Peña Nieto-led government.
In accordance with the court’s ruling, the victims’ representatives and the CNDH will determine the lines of investigation to be followed in the new probe and may also call on national and international experts and human rights groups to contribute to the new investigation.
The PGR personnel who participate in the commission’s probe must not have been involved in the original investigation and the inclusion of any PGR forensic experts must be approved by the victims’ representatives and CNDH members, the court said.
The ruling also stipulated that members of the commission will have “free and immediate access” to all places where “there are motives to believe” that the disappeared students or their remains are or were, or where evidence that provides information regarding their whereabouts could be found “including places subject to military jurisdiction.”
The decision also called on President Peña Nieto to “give instructions to all the secretariats and departments that make up his cabinet so that, within the framework of their respective responsibilities, they provide their support and other aptitudes that the aforementioned commission requires to achieve its task.”
The court’s directive stemmed from an injunction filed by five defendants who accused the government of using torture against them in order to extract confessions.
The detained men’s claim is consistent with a United Nations (UN) report published in March which said that 34 people were tortured in connection with the investigation into the students’ disappearance.
PGR staff as well as personnel from the Federal Police and Navy Secretariat were involved in the process, the UN said.
Massive protests followed the 2014 disappearance of the 43 students.
The judges upheld the defendants’ injunction request and ruled that the investigations into the five men’s alleged crimes must be redone. The ruling, however, doesn’t allow for their release from custody.
The court said that new investigations into those who have been arrested must be carried out by independent experts in accordance with procedures established by the Istanbul Protocol, which provides guidelines for the investigation and assessment of people who have alleged that torture was used against them.
The court also submitted that victims’ families should be afforded compensation of 500,000 pesos (US $24,500) as a “partial advance so that the victims can meet their most pressing economic needs.”
Mario Patrón of the Centro Prodh human rights organization — which is representing the families of the missing students — described the ruling as a “massive blow for the government” and said that he couldn’t think of an historic precedent for the move.
The court said the order to create a truth commission was precipitated by an “unprecedented incident” and gave the government 10 days to comply.
But legal experts, including Chilean lawyer Francisco Cox, who participated in an international investigation into the case, questioned whether the government would even make an effort to carry out the measures given that it is nearing the end of its six-year term.
In a statement, the PGR responded to the decision by contending that the judges “do not recognize the separation of powers and the faculties of prosecution, investigation and criminal proceedings that correspond to the Attorney General’s office in accordance with article 21 of the constitution.”
The federal agency also said it would carry out an analysis of the ruling in order to determine what legal action it might take against it.
It could appeal the decision in the Supreme Court but given that the federal court ruling is definitive, the newspaper Milenio reported, it is unlikely it would be overturned.
Internet provides a convenient marketplace for illegal drugs.
Three marijuana brownies for 100 pesos (US $5) or 10 grams of pot for the same price are among a range of offers from people selling drugs online in Mexico, including social networks such as Facebook.
Other substances available on the internet include 2C-C, 2C-E, LSD, proscaline and DOC — all synthetic, psychedelic drugs — as well as mescaline, according to a report by the anti-drugs division of the Federal Police.
Mexicans who purchase illicit drugs online are typically aged between 17 and 32, don’t have criminal records, are from the middle and upper classes and have the technical know-how to hide their real identity, the report said.
Payments are usually made with debit or credit cards, via online money transfers or using cryptocurrencies after bank or personal details are exchanged in private messages.
The drugs are then delivered to the customers either using courier companies or via personal meetings between sellers and buyers that commonly take place in cars, shopping malls or subway stations, among other locations.
Some transactions take place between individuals — who sell small quantities of drugs — and their friends and acquaintances in Facebook groups and marketplaces, often using fake profiles specifically created for the purpose.
Paola, a 23-year-old university student, told the newspaper El Universal that she sells marijuana brownies via a Facebook profile and delivers them personally to her customers at stations on the Mexico City Metro.
She said she has been selling her product on Facebook for more than a year and that her earnings help her to cover her educational expenses.
Another vendor, also a student, told El Universal that she has been selling marijuana online for almost six years and also offers workshops teaching students how to make their own cannabis-based products.
However, it’s not just opportunistic individuals who are taking advantage of the convenience and ease of selling drugs on the internet.
The Federal Police have also detected that there are organized crime groups selling drugs online.
The groups operate in Mexico City, México state, Querétaro, Puebla, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Quintana Roo but ship to every state in the country and even to other countries such as the United States, Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile and Peru.
Drugs available on social media or the dark web.
The drugs are shipped with meticulous care to avoid detection and ensure that they arrive at their destination. Because the quantities sent are often small, detection is even more difficult, the Federal Police report said.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has also identified Mexican criminal groups including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel as vendors of synthetic drugs in the United States via websites located on the so-called dark web.
At a meeting held in Mexico City in April, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) warned that online drug sales are on the rise and that over the past 10 years 700 new psychoactive drugs have been detected and 400 of them are available on the dark web.
Apart from purchasing the illicit substances online, drug consumers also use Facebook and forums on other websites to rate the products they have purchased and consumed.
“This is [high] quality . . . it arrived in less than 24 hours . . . Mark definitely knows how to make his customers happy,” one consumer recently wrote in a closed group created to sell drugs on the popular social network.
Mexico will challenge the United States’ metal tariffs at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the grounds that they violate international trade rules, the government said today.
“In response to the measures the United States applied to Mexican steel and aluminum exports, Mexico announces that it will initiate a dispute settlement process under the World Trade Organization,” the Secretariat of Economy (SE) said in a statement.
The U.S. government imposed the respective 25% and 10% duties on Mexican, Canadian and European Union steel and aluminum from June 1 on national security grounds, although in the case of its North American neighbors United States Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the decision was based on a lack of progress in NAFTA talks.
The SE statement said “Mexico considers that the measures imposed by the US under section 232 of its legislation, arguing threats to its national security, violate the WTO’s Agreement on Safeguards by not having been adopted in accordance with the provided procedures.”
The tariffs also violate the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it added.
The announcement that Mexico will seek the intervention of the WTO in the dispute follows the government’s swift response last Thursday that it would “impose equivalent measures” on its northern neighbor.
The retaliatory tariffs target products from exporters in states that are politically important to United States President Donald Trump and include steel flats, pork and a variety of fruits and cheeses.
Today’s statement said that the Mexican government’s actions will continue to comply with the rules of international trade law and “will be proportional to the damage that Mexico unfortunately receives.”
Both Canada and the European Union have already filed challenges against the tariffs with the WTO.
Averages in a collation of recent opinion polls. oraculus/el país
There is a 92% probability that leading presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador will win the July 1 election, according to an electoral model developed by the newspaper El País.
The prediction is based on a simulation of 20,000 elections in which the four candidates face off against each other and takes into account a collation of opinion poll results.
The model indicates that there is a 7% probability that right-left coalition candidate Ricardo Anaya will triumph and just a 1% chance that the ruling party candidate, José Antonio Meade, will become Mexico’s next president.
The newspaper said the model has a 3.5% margin of error for each candidate.
Based on 16 surveys collated by El País, the Morena party leader widely known as AMLO has an average of 48.2% voter support, while the For Mexico in Front candidate, Anaya, has 27.5% backing.
Meade is in third place with 19.5% support and an average of 2% of those polled said they would vote for independent Jaime “El Bronco” Rodríguez.
In Bloomberg’s May 30 poll tracker — which also collates surveys — López Obrador’s advantage over Anaya is even larger at 27 points, while the latest poll by the newspaper Reforma, published last week, showed a similar result, with AMLO outpolling his nearest rival by a rate of two to one.
In predicting a likely victory by the Together We Will Make History candidate, El País noted that an electoral upset in which the frontrunner gave up a 20-point advantage would not be “normal.”
López Obrador losing the election from his current position would be rarer than Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo missing a penalty kick, the newspaper said.
It also pointed out that AMLO didn’t drop in the polls after either of the two presidential debates despite such forums not being the third-time candidate’s strongest suit.
The four most recent surveys included in the newspaper’s average — Parametria, Reforma, Ipsos and Demotecnia — all showed the frontrunner with more than 50% support.
However, a López Obrador victory is not an out-and-out certainty because “the polls could still move and up to the final day there will be room for a surprise,” El País said.
On the other hand, support for the former Mexico City mayor has consistently trended upwards and his probability of winning has increased by 13 points compared to the newspaper’s March 31 prediction when it said he had a 79% chance of electoral success.
Meade, who is heading a coalition led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has struggled to throw off the shackles of being associated with a government that has been plagued by corruption scandals and is led by a deeply unpopular president.
The recent Reforma poll showed that just 20% of respondents approved of Enrique Peña Nieto’s performance.
Meade served as a secretary in three different cabinet posts during the current administration, most recently as secretary of finance.
A strong performance in the second debate in Tijuana two weeks ago failed to lift him out of the doldrums of third place in most polls.
After making up some ground on López Obrador in the previous Reforma poll, Anaya ceded his gain by losing four points in last week’s Reforma poll while AMLO gained four.
Both he and Meade have charged that the election result is not a foregone conclusion because of the number of voters who have indicated that they haven’t yet decided who they will vote for on July 1.
But El País said that abstention rates are high among undecided voters, meaning that the possibility of that cohort harming López Obrador’s chances are less than polls may suggest.
One factor in Anaya’s favor, however, is the support of the business elite, which has largely thrown its support behind the former National Action Party (PAN) president.
Several large businesses, including two that are directed and owned by Mexico’s second and third richest men, have also warned their employees against voting for the leftist frontrunner.
There is also the so-called voto útil — or strategic vote — factor that some analysts believe will boost Anaya’s support because those who would otherwise support Meade may choose to vote for the second-place candidate because they consider him the only candidate capable of defeating López Obrador.
But El País cited a poll by Demotecnia that showed that in a head-to-head contest between Anaya and AMLO, Meade’s votes were shared almost equally between the two candidates.
“In other words, there is a part of the PRI who feels more comfortable with a López Obrador victory than a triumph by the ex-president of the PAN,” the newspaper said.
The Grand Warlock: the cards say Anaya.
A large voto útil for Anaya, considering current poll figures, wouldn’t be enough to ensure his victory in any case, El País said.
With that in mind, the prediction by a warlock may be cold comfort for the youngest candidate in the field.
Enrique Marthé Bertón, the Brujo Mayor, or the Grand Warlock, has predicted that Anaya will prevail on July 1. He cited a previous correct prediction — that former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte would be arrested — as evidence that his latest prophecy is foolproof.
A drought and water pollution are both possible reasons for the deaths of eight manatees last month in Tabasco.
Although the cause of the deaths in the El Maluco lagoon in the municipality of Centro is not clear, environmentalists and fishermen blame low water levels and pollution, conditions that remain a threat to the remaining animals.
” . . . We’ve notified the authorities but they don’t do anything, they just come to bury the animals and go away,” said Denis Muñoz Potenciano, a fisherman from the nearby town of El Venadito in Macuspana.
He explained that manatees were numerous in the lagoon in the past and were a tourist attraction, but now only about 10 animals remain.
Muñoz said drought has caused some sections of the lagoon to become stagnant, leaving fish without oxygen and causing mass die-offs.
Officials from the environmental protection agency Profepa have only recently started taking water samples from the lagoon, but their study and analysis takes about 10 days, and locals fear that by then more manatees will be found dead.
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A decade ago, Tabasco had the largest manatee population in the country. Profepa data has revealed that numbers have declined since then by about 60% due to pollution and hunting.
Manatees have been considered an endangered species by the Mexican government since 2010, and their future in Tabasco is not promising. There are only three facilities where the mammals are kept in captivity, and their protection in the wild is almost non-existent, according to experts.
