Blue indicates territory of Santa Rosa de Lima; yellow is being fought over with the CJNG. Inset is the area that previously formed the base of operations for the former. milenio
The fuel theft gang believed to be behind much of the violence that made Guanajuato Mexico’s deadliest state last year is now expanding into Querétaro and Hidalgo, according to federal intelligence officials.
The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has expanded its area of influence significantly over the past two years and now has operational bases in the Guanajuato municipalities of Villagrán, Juventino Rosas, Celaya, Apaseo el Grande and Apaseo el Alto, the officials told the newspaper Milenio.
The gang’s suspected leader, José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez, also has complete control of the municipalities of Cortazar, Jerécuaro, Comonfort, Coroneo and Tarimoro.
Since 2017, the cartel has expanded the area of territory it controls – known as the Guanajuato Triangle – from 130 square kilometers to 400 square kilometers despite efforts by both federal and state authorities to combat its activities.
The two Apaseo municipalities border Querétaro, providing a springboard for the cartel to move into that state, while it has also begun making its first incursions into Hidalgo, located farther east.
The areas targeted by the gang all have one thing in common: Pemex petroleum pipelines run through them.
As the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel expands its presence – all the while tapping the pipelines to extract fuel which it sells on the black market – violence in the parts of Guanajuato in which the gang operates has surged, especially in areas where it is involved in a turf war with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Irapuato, Salamanca and Celaya, all three disputed by the two criminal organizations, ranked first, third and fourth respectively for the number of homicides they recorded in 2018, and along with Valle de Santiago accounted for 36% of all murders in Guanajuato.
The four municipalities also led the state for slayings of police officers. Six traffic police were shot and killed in one particularly violent attack in Salamanca on June 1 last year and two months later, three officers were abducted and executed in the same municipality.
In Apaseo el Alto, a candidate for mayor was shot dead while campaigning in May last year while the municipality’s new transport director was murdered the same day he took office last October.
On January 25, the director of the 911 emergency response service in Irapuato was killed after he refused to continue leaking information to the Santa Rosa Cartel and six days later, a narco-banner allegedly signed by Yépez appeared in Salamanca warning President López Obrador to remove security forces from Guanajuato or innocent people will die.
Explosives, referred to in the narcomanta as a “little gift,” were also left inside a vehicle parked in front of the Salamanca oil refinery but were removed by the army before they detonated.
The federal government is cracking down on fuel theft with a strategy that includes deploying the military and Federal Police to guard petroleum pipelines and other infrastructure owned and operated by the state oil company.
A semi that is on the list of vehicles to be auctioned this month.
The full list of more than 200 vehicles to be auctioned by the federal government this month — from semi-tractors to farm tractors — has been published online.
Armored vehicles, cars, motorcycles, buses, tractors and semi trailers are among the vehicles listed, eight of which are valued at more than 1 million pesos (US $52,000).
The priciest vehicle on the list is Lot 1, a 2012 armored Audi A8 valued at 1.9 million pesos (US $99,500).
For truckers, there’s a 2016 Volvo semi-tractor and trailer whose value of 1.61 million pesos makes it the second most expensive.
Cheapest ride on auction is a 2003 Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup worth just 29,400 pesos, while for bikers there’s a 2013 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 valued at 45,300 pesos.
The federal government anticipates taking in 100 million pesos ($5.24 million), money that will help fund a new security force to be called the national guard.
The auction will take place on February 23 and 24 at the Santa Lucía air force base in México state.
Business groups question government's lack of support for steel industry.
The federal government’s decision not to renew a 15% safeguard duty for imported steel and protect the Mexican industry is a grave mistake, two business groups have warned.
In a joint statement directed at President López Obrador and Economy Secretary Graciela Márquez, the National Chamber of the Iron and Steel Industry (Canacero) and the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin) said they were concerned about the January 31 expiration of the 15% safeguard for steel imports from countries with which Mexico doesn’t have a trade agreement.
The safeguard measure was first put in place in October 2015 and was subsequently renewed every six months before the current government allowed it to lapse on February 1.
Canacero and Concamin said the decision not to renew the safeguard measure could lead to Mexico being used as an interim destination for goods headed to the United States.
Its renewal, they said, is a fundamental factor in having the United States exclude Mexico from the tariffs on steel and aluminum that were imposed on June 1 last year.
Non-renewal will result in Mexico being seen as a “triangulation platform” and the respective 25% and 10% tariffs won’t be removed, the business groups said.
That would place the approval of the new United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement at risk because the majority of members of the United States House of Representatives have placed the elimination of the measure in North America as a condition for their approval of the pact, Canacero and Concamin said.
Because there are no negotiations currently under way to have the tariffs removed, Canacero president Máximo Vedoya said, the Mexican steel industry is unprotected.
In contrast, other countries have put up adequate barriers to protect their steel sector, he said.
“Unfortunately, Mexico is taking a different path and we have to convince the Secretariat of the Economy that this is a mistake, a grave mistake, because we can’t compete and it’s not worth competing with different weapons,” Vedoya said.
Francisco Cervantes, president of Concamin, said that a safeguard on foreign steel is urgently needed but added that the Secretariat of the Economy (SE) is dragging its feet.
“We’re in discussions [but] we don’t feel receptiveness [to our point of view]. They’ve taken too long in their communication . . .” he said.
“We’re seeking safeguards . . . [of] a significant percentage [but] that don’t affect the automotive sector,” Cervantes continued, adding that Secretary Márquez has been invited to reflect on the need to protect the national steel industry.
Canacero and Concamin said the industry generates more than 700,000 direct and indirect jobs in Mexico but the sector is under threat from the global overproduction of the metal and the 25% tariff “imposed unilaterally and unfairly by the United States government.”
The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has warned the federal government that it cannot delegate its responsibility to protect people’s rights after the latter asked the former for advice on how to end teachers’ rail blockades in Michoacán.
In a statement, the CNDH said that “authorities of the different levels of government are obliged to protect and guarantee . . . people’s rights, a mandate that they can’t relinquish or seek to delegate to third parties.”
The commission urged the federal executive to fulfill that obligation, stating that the government’s responsibility cannot “depend on or be made conditional on a declaration or resolution by an organization for the protection and defense of human rights.”
President López Obrador said yesterday that the government had filed a complaint with the CNDH against those responsible for the rail blockades and sought the commission’s opinion on what action to take in the context of its determination not to use force against the teachers.
The CNDH commended the government’s commitment not to use force but added that the position doesn’t absolve it of the responsibility to act if protesters are found to have broken the law.
“While it is positive that other ways [to end the blockades] are favored over the use of force, if the relevant government authorities were to determine the existence of an illegal act, such an attitude cannot justify it being permissible that authorities relinquish or hold back from fulfilling their constitutional obligation,” the statement said.
The CNDH urged that “the parties involved in the conflict seek a solution through the building of agreements, within the framework of the law, establishing a process of dialogue that contributes to the building and strengthening of a culture of peace in the country.”
López Obrador told reporters at his morning press conference yesterday that his government has been available for dialogue and had done everything asked of it to satisfy the demands of Michoacán teachers, who say they are owed billions of pesos in unpaid salaries and benefits.
He also asked the CNTE teachers’ union to clarify whether teachers who continued to block railway tracks in Uruapan and Pátzcuaro were its members.
Speaking later in the day at an event in Huetamo, Michoacán, the president urged dissident teachers to not be “rebels without a cause,” and asked them to wait patiently for their demands to be resolved and for the “misnamed educational reform” to be repealed.
“I’ve just seen my Interior Secretariat file, what they were saying about me 40 years ago; they spied on me because I was in the opposition, so I know what it’s like to fight for just causes,” López Obrador said.
“. . . None of this intransigence and waiting [on the railway tracks] thinking that . . . you’ll provoke me and that I’ll use public force so that you can accuse me of being an oppressor, an authoritarian . . . No, I’m not going to fall into provocation,” he added.
While the CNTE teachers’ union last week agreed to lift the seven rail blockades in Michoacán, radical teachers belonging to the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) and the National Democratic Executive Committee have maintained those in Pátzcuaro and Uruapan.
Section 18 union leaders said in a statement Thursday that the CNTE was not associated with any groups that choose to defy the directive to lift the rail blockades.
However, early yesterday CNTE-affiliated teachers reestablished a blockade on tracks in the port city of Lázaro Cardenas, where thousands of shipping containers are stranded, and barricaded at least 60 government offices in Michoacán.
The newspaper Milenio reported that the CNTE members returned to the tracks in a show of solidarity with three teachers who were summoned to the federal Attorney General’s office in Morelia after railway company Kansas City Southern filed a criminal complaint against them.
The blockades, which were first erected on January 14, have cost the economy close to 30 billion pesos (US $1.6 billion), while the teachers’ work stoppage has left students in Michoacán without classes for almost a month.
The CNTE said later yesterday it had agreed to “a tactical withdrawal” of all rail blockades in Michoacán and that it was ready to resume trilateral talks with state and federal authorities. However, this morning the blockade in Caltzontzin, Uruapan, remained in place.
Despite the ongoing blockade, Michoacán Education Secretary Alberto Frutis Solís said yesterday that talks between the three parties would resume today and it is believed they will be held in Mexico City.
Teachers have previously said that they want 5 billion pesos before they will return to the classroom but Section 18 CNTE leader Víctor Manuel Zavala said yesterday that the union is seeking commitments worth around 6 billion pesos (US $313.7 million) in order for the conflict to be resolved.
To date, state and federal governments have released more than 2 billion pesos in funding to pay salaries and bonuses in response to teachers’ demands.
An environmental organization in Morelos has unequivocally rejected President López Obrador’s public consultation on the Huesca thermal power plant in Yecapixtla, Morelos.
The People’s Council in Defense of Air, Water and Land, an umbrella group of several different organizations, said it remained opposed to the project regardless of the outcome of the vote.
Organization leaders Jaime Domínguez Pérez and Teresa Castellanos told a press conference that they were surprised and angered by what they see as López Obrador’s flip-flop: in 2014 he said that building the plant would be like “putting a garbage dump in Jerusalem.”
They said they had hoped for an ally in the president and had expected him to announce the project’s cancellation and designation of the site as the location of a new public university.
The two said the consultation aims to make a mockery of their seven-year-long fight.
Castellanos said residents have seen an increase in respiratory problems, pinkeye, rhinitis, hearing damage, cancer and genetic mutations, all of which have been corroborated by studies conducted by academics and civil organizations. She added that large numbers of fish and birds have turned up dead near the plant.
The opponents of the project plan to present their demands Sunday when the president is scheduled to visit Cuautla, and invite him to drink a glass of water from the area surrounding the plant and observe its effects. Those usually include intense vomiting and nausea, they said.
López Obrador has promised that the 20-billion-peso plant (US $1 billion) will be clean and that its operation will include a water quality certification by the National Water Commission.
He stressed that the project could provide cheap electricity for the entire state of Morelos, but he also said he would respect the outcome of the consultation.
The vote will be held on February 24 and 25 in more than 70 municipalities in Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.
Infonavit head Martínez makes a lot less than his predecessor.
The former head of the national housing fund, Infonavit, paid himself a handsome salary — because he could.
Speaking in Guerrero yesterday at a presentation on the national fertilizer program, President López Obrador repeated that excesses in government spending will no longer be tolerated, and used the former Infonavit chief as an example.
David Penchyna, the president said, earned a gross monthly salary of 700,000 pesos (US $37,000). His successor, on the other hand, is receiving substantially less.
The extravagance is over now, López Obrador said. “We’ve cut salaries of those at the top to increase the salaries of those at the bottom.”
The new Infonavit director, Carlos Martínez Velázquez, told a Wednesday press conference that the former director’s annual income had been set at 9.3 million pesos (US $487,000), a salary set by Penchyna himself.
In answer to a direct question from a reporter, Martínez said he had chosen a more modest salary for himself in keeping with the administration’s austerity program.
“Since I made a promise to the president, I set my salary — because Infonavit’s rules stipulate that I can give myself however much I want — at 107,500 pesos (US $5,600) a month net.” (In gross terms, that’s about 150,000 pesos.)
López Obrador reiterated his promise not to tolerate corruption and impunity under his watch and appealed to those present to be honest.
“What am I asking of you? Just that you implement the program well. I’m not asking you to learn how to use the fertilizer; you’re all experts. I am asking you to not resell the fertilizer, that there not be a black market for fertilizer, that we all behave well.”
Workers' representative Elejarza speaks to reporters.
Workers at 45 factories in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, have threatened to take strike action if they are not given the same pay raise and annual bonus as those given to thousands of workers in Matamoros.
But rather than abruptly walking off the job to demand a 20% salary increase and 32,000-peso (US $1,700) end-of-year bonus, the workers will first seek to negotiate with their employers.
Workers’ representative Marco Antonio Elejarza said that direct negotiations – without the involvement of trade unions – could take place between the employees and companies.
He said the 8,000 Reynosa workers, many of whom are employed at electronics and auto parts factories, have “a lot of concerns” about their labor situation that they wish to take up with their employers.
Worker unrest has reached the northern border city from Matamoros, located around 90 kilometers east, where tens of thousands of employees from around 75 businesses have gone on strike over the past two weeks. The job action has been dubbed Movimiento 20/30 in reference to the pay raise and bonus sought.
Workers in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital, are also seeking salary hikes. Aptiv, an auto parts manufacturer, reached an agreement Thursday with its 5,000 workers to increase salaries 16%. Workers began negotiations demanding 30%.
Employees of Kemet, another auto parts maker, have threatened a strike to press for a 16% raise, said Dolores Zúñiga Vázquez, general secretary of the Maquiladoras Industrial Union.
Many companies have agreed to the demands but the president of the National Council of the Maquiladora Industry (Index Nacional) said last week that even though they are signing new collective agreements with workers, some of them plan to leave Matamoros and Mexico in the next six to nine months.
He and labor law academic, Enrique Larios Díaz, warned earlier this week that strike action would spread to other parts of the country.
In Matamoros, the job action has not just hurt the factories where the striking workers are employed but also other sectors of the economy.
Miguel Ángel Caballero, president of the city’s Historic Center Businesses’ Union, said that since the labor conflict began on January 12, businesses have seen a 40% reduction in sales.
President López Obrador has warned that the merger between the Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox must be considered carefully because of a possible conflict of interest related to its regulatory approval – and it could push soccer matches on to Pay TV channels.
Speaking at his daily press conference this morning, López Obrador said that he has been informed that a former official who worked at the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) was hired by one of the two companies to complete the application to formally register the merger in Mexico.
The Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) approved the Disney-Fox merger this week, stating that there is little probability of it affecting free competition, but the IFT also has to give its approval for it to go ahead.
“The information I have is that [the merger] wasn’t allowed in Europe or the United States and here they want to authorize it. I am respectful of the organization that regulates and decides on these matters but I also have information that there is a conflict of interest,” López Obrador said.
The president also said that he was concerned that the merger between the two companies could result in Mexicans having to pay to watch the nation’s favorite sport on television.
“What worries me the most is that they’ll charge for watching soccer. It’s not my favorite sport but a lot of people watch soccer. An authorization that affects consumers, soccer fans, it’s not going to happen,” López Obrador said.
“If soccer is affected, well no, review the matter, discuss it, debate it. Yes, they [Cofece and the IFT] are autonomous organizations but they’re not infallible, they’re not like The Castle of Purity [a 1972 Mexican film], let’s see what they’re doing, we all have a right to know that,” he added.
Federico González Luna, a member of the Institute of Telecommunications Law (IDET), said that if the merger is authorized under the terms currently proposed, 73% of Mexico’s sports television channels will be owned by a single company and many soccer matches will likely be shown only on premium channels.
That scenario, he said, would “exclude a lot of Mexicans, especially those with lower incomes because they won’t be able to pay to watch soccer matches.”
The Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox in a deal worth US $71.3 billion that was approved by shareholders of both companies in July last year.
We are anchored at the sea lion rookery of Los Islotes, 1,300 kilometers northwest of Mexico City. I am a guest of my friend Richard Gresham aboard his 51-foot sloop, the good ship God’s Way.
We set out from La Paz for this point early this morning, passing Steven Spielberg’s huge yacht, Seven Seas, along the way. The other two crew members are geologist Chris Lloyd and tarantula expert Rodrigo Orozco.
At the moment, I am the only person on board, as the other three are 29 meters away, hobnobbing with a bunch of very curious sea lion pups they found in a tiny inlet, a hopefully safe distance away from the enormous males sprawled over nearby rocks and creating a great stir with their loud, raucous calls.
“The babies kept nibbling at my fins . . . they nibble at everything, just to see what it is,” Rodrigo Orozco told me later. “They seemed to be having a lot of fun.”
Heading for shore in a kayak to explore the beach.
Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez “the world’s aquarium,” and no wonder. During just a few hours we have spotted parrotfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish, billfish, surgeonfish, groupers, mackerel and sardines. As for birds, we have seen pelicans, cormorants, boobies, sandpipers, great blue herons, ravens and, of course, seagulls.
With reluctance we raise anchor and head for our next destination, La Partida.
“It’s a nice, quiet place with a high, sloping wall that blocks the wind,” says the captain. “You’ll enjoy walking along the shore: it’s just teeming with marine life.”
Although our destination is nice and quiet, getting there is something else because the sea is choppy today. As soon as the engine is turned on, the boat begins to crash over the waves: Bang! Bang! Bang!
Everything inside the cockpit begins first to swing, then to rise and fall. Anything that wasn’t properly stored then slides off whatever surface it was on and crashes to the floor, rolling, bouncing, shattering or splashing in every direction.
Bang! Bang! Bang! As the spray washes over the deck, every window in the boat begins to leak, including the one above my bed.
Pelican at Los Islotes. Chris Lloyd
“Captain! The windows are leaking!”
The reply is barely audible over the commotion of a ship under way: “John, in a boat, everything leaks. Better get used to it.”
With the ship in motion, we crew members now have a choice: stay in the cockpit and get seasick or go on deck and get blasted by icy spray that hits you every time the boat crashes into a wave.
Well, on the deck it’s windy, wet and cold, guaranteeing that if you are up there during phase one you won’t be passing those four hours reading or writing, so I opt for the cockpit and, fortunately, my stomach quickly learns how to adjust to the wild thrashing of the boat.
Then the captain shouts, “Land ho!” The engine is shut off and there is a sudden hush as we glide into the sheltered bay. We have arrived.
God’s Way, my floating home for a week, is owned by “semi-retired” mining engineer Richard Gresham, who says he’s always dreamed of sailing and bought God’s Way from a very religious man living in the Bible Belt “who was no good at repairing anything, so I was able to buy the boat for a song because it was in a terrible state when I got it.
Pelicans and sea lion at Los Islotes rookery.
But then it cost me a fortune to get it up to where it is today. I bought this sloop with the intention of sailing it through the Panama Canal, up through the Caribbean and on to Boston . . . but projects got in the way and, in the meantime, I fell in love with the Sea of Cortez, which I have toured eight times so far and which I expect to tour several times more, as there is so much to see in this wonderful sea . . . life is good!”
Day 3, San Francisco Island
This island is notable for its high, barren, rocky walls “with a trail going up to the top.” Yesterday we had arrived here through a very choppy sea, but this morning the surface is as smooth as glass and I get what I hope will be a magnificent picture of sunrise — dawn, actually — through my porthole.
After breakfast we find our boat totally surrounded by sardines. The schools swirl like clouds of underwater starlings. Among them we can occasionally see needlefish which are truly long, thin and pointy, at least a foot long.
“They are only dangerous if you happen to get in their way,” I am told. Richard and Chris go snorkeling and once again see an astounding variety of exotic fish.
We raise anchor and glide across the mirror-smooth surface a couple of kilometers to Bahía Amortajada — ”Chopped-up Bay.” Now and again a manta ray leaps into the air alongside the boat.
Happy sailors relaxing. Rodrigo Orozco
We anchor off a shore covered with a forest of giant cardon cacti, said to be the tallest in the world. Here there is a river filled with mangroves leading to a small lake. We spot a turkey vulture, kingfisher, white ibis, night heron, snowy egret and gulls.
Day 4
We are on our way to San José. This is part of the mainland connected by a long, rough road to La Paz. We drop anchor at a place called Nopaló, where there’s a very rocky beach and an isolated house — from which the wind wafts music to us over the waves. It’s Shakira singing! Binoculars reveal a little girl doing cartwheels to the music, on the porch.
To go ashore, we put on swimsuits, stuff clothing into a dry bag, carefully slide on to plastic “kayaks” that resemble no kayak I have ever seen, and paddle ashore.
We stroll down the beach to the home of Señora León, a jolly lady who immediately says, “Sí sí” when we ask whether she might be able to fry us some fish for which we would be happy to pay her.
While waiting for our dinner, we wander along a path paralleling a rough wall of volcanic rock dotted with shelter caves. The trail takes us to the local cemetery where we find only the graves of people named León, some with very large and impressive tombstones. It seems amazing that generations of the same family have lived in this isolated place.
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Setting foot on land reveals that we are no longer landlubbers. The salt cedars along the trail all seem to be swaying — but there’s no wind! And later, when we sit down in Señora León’s kitchen we all remark how curiously the walls are dancing and how amazing it is that nothing is rolling across the table.
Our ebullient hostess serves us a delicious meal of rice, broccoli and truly exquisite fried dorado (mahi mahi). We return to the boat stuffed and happy and spend the night anchored in the same bay.
To be continued
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
A farmworker walks on top of a truckload of tomatoes.
The United States intends to withdraw from a six-year-old trade agreement with Mexico on tomatoes, the U.S. government said yesterday, a move that clears the way for new tariffs to be imposed.
The United States Department of Commerce said in a statement that on February 6 it notified the Mexican signatories to the 2013 Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico of its plan to withdraw.
The agreement averted a trade war over tomatoes in 2013 by establishing a floor price for the Mexican product in the United States and barring U.S. producers from pursuing anti-dumping charges against Mexican exporters.
Once the 90-day notification period expires on May 7, the United States will resume an anti-dumping investigation into Mexican tomatoes, which could lead to new duties on the fruit, higher prices for U.S. consumers and possible retaliation from Mexico.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the withdrawal decision follows complaints from United States tomato producers, including the Florida Tomato Exchange, that they are being undercut by Mexican imports.
“We have heard the concerns of the American tomato producing industry and are taking action today to ensure they are protected from unfair trading practices,” Ross said.
“The Trump administration will continue to use every tool in our toolbox to ensure trade is free, fair, and reciprocal.”
Forty-six members of the United States Congress also wrote to Ross last week to urge him to withdraw from the agreement.
More than half are from Florida, a large tomato growing state and one that is politically important for U.S. President Donald Trump.
The lawmaker said that Mexico’s share of the United States tomato market increased from 32% in 1996 to 54% in 2017. In the same period, U.S. farmers’ market share declined from 65% to 40%.
The Congress members said that since the United States government first agreed to suspend anti-dumping cases in 1996, hundreds of U.S. tomato producers have been forced out of business.
“The industry will continue to shrink if the status quo is maintained,” the lawmakers wrote.
The U.S. Department of Commerce said that it started negotiations with Mexican signatories in January 2018 to revise the tomato agreement but “despite committed efforts from all sides, significant outstanding issues remained.”
The department said that if its anti-dumping investigation finds that tomatoes were sold at less than fair value, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) will investigate to determine damage to the U.S. tomato industry.
“If both Commerce and the ITC issue affirmative final determinations, an anti-dumping duty order will be issued,” the statement said.
Mexican foreign trade undersecretary Luz María de la Mora said in a television interview that irrespective of the findings of the United States investigations, Mexico has the legal instruments – backed up by international agreements – to defend Mexican tomato growers and their exports.
Mexico exported just over US $2 million worth of tomatoes to its northern neighbor in the first 11 months of 2018 – around half of total production.
The possibility of the introduction of tomato tariffs later this year opens up a new source of trade conflict between Mexico and the United States.
When the latter country imposed tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum last year, Mexico struck back swiftly by introducing duties on U.S. pork, apples, cheese, bourbon and steel flats, among other products.
