MI’s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter – Jul. 24, 2026

July 31, 2026
12:00 pm

Foreign coverage on Mexico

It doesn’t take much to set off a bout of who’s-to-blame between the US and Mexico right now. This week, it was tainted lettuce.

The widening outbreak of cyclosporiasis cases in the US has the FDA on the hunt for lettuce zero, putting Mexico’s agricultural industry on edge. The NYT reported on the response in Guanajuato — the country’s “undisputed lettuce powerhouse” — where the facilities of California-based Taylor Farms in Doctor Mora are under suspicion, and where locals are concerned about the fallout if the plant is responsible for “turning Americans’ bowels into gurgling time bombs”. Taylor Farms reportedly shut down their Guanajuato processing facility temporarily on Thursday; Mexican health authorities said samples have tested negative for the parasite.

The third round of US-Mexico trade talks in Mexico City was the headline economic news of the week. The two parties agreed to another meeting in September, but Reuters quoted sources close to the negotiations who said “the two sides remain far apart on key issues”. USTR Jamieson Greer has also said the USMCA’s future depends on whether Mexico is “playing ball” on other areas, such as compliance with the 1944 bilateral water treaty. Reuters reported declining GDP growth forecasts for Mexico in a poll of 32 economists, citing trade uncertainty as a factor making the outlook “not particularly inspiring” according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latam economics at Goldman Sachs.

Bloomberg reported on the Tourism Ministry’s initial data on World Cup visitors, which tallied 3 million foreign arrivals in host cities — below earlier forecasts of up to 5.5 million. The revenue generated for local economies by the tournament (around 40 billion pesos) also came up short of expectations, but Tourism Minister Josefina Rodríguez Zamora told the outlet they’re expecting at least a 5% bump in tourist arrivals in the coming months, inspired by the good PR generated during the World Cup: “Foreigners were amazed.”

The LA Times covered a story that has been mostly ignored by both the press and the Mexican and US governments: the deaths of at least 13 fishermen from coastal Pacific towns in lethal US airstrikes on alleged drug boats. According to locals, the men killed in a February strike off the coast of Nayarit were earning extra cash by transporting gasoline out to refuel cocaine speedboats. A local priest quoted in the piece acknowledged that “they knew the risks”, but as another fisherman put it: “What they did was illegal, yes. But it doesn’t make them terrorists.”

In crime news, the big story of the week was the sentencing of 76-year-old Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada to life in prison in New York and his mea culpa. Zambada pleaded guilty in August 2025 to continuing criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy, admitting responsibility for 85 underlying crimes. At sentencing, AP reported that the former Sinaloa Cartel leader expressed regret for his crimes and said the violence should end because “no one wins in a war like this”. He also faces US$15 billion in financial penalties, but prosecutors haven’t yet been able to identify or recover any assets.

The Atlantic covered the scandal swirling around BC Governor Marina del Pilar’s leaked phone call — “almost too Narcos to be real” — and the wider effort by US law enforcement to pressure Mexican officials into becoming informants, leveraging information gathered from the over 100 alleged criminals transferred north during Sheinbaum’s term.

Notable blogs in English on Mexico

On CrashOut this week, Ioan Grillo goes into detail about El Mayo’s “last hustle” that looks likely to keep the wily kingpin out of maximum-security prison, unlike his former partner in crime, El Chapo Guzmán. Mexico Decoded unpacked Morena’s nepotism reform passed in 2025 and why the party is implementing it immediately while other parties will wait until 2030. The Mexico Political Economist took stock of the boost to Mexico’s image abroad following the World Cup. And in Materia Gris, Eduardo García analysed the claim by Sheinbaum and IMSS chief Zoé Robledo that only 4,000 hospital beds were added during the “neoliberal” period from 1983–2018, noting this understates the real figures — the public system as a whole actually added nearly 30,000 beds in that period, comparable to earlier decades, though bed additions have indeed accelerated since 2019. And Miranda Intelligence’s daily Substack covered key developments in energy, fintech, public affairs and politics in Mexico.

CrashOut Media – El Mayo’s Last Hustle
MXPE – Measuring Mexico’s soft power after the World Cup
Mexico Decoded – The Nepo Trap That Could Break Mexico’s Ruling Party
Materia Gris – The IMSS’s 4000 Beds: The Biased Use of a Statistic
Miranda Intelligence daily reports on Substack

Photo of the Week

President Claudia Sheinbaum, Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in the National Palace in Mexico City on 23 July. (Claudia Sheinbaum/X)

MI’s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter – Jul. 24, 2026

Foreign coverage on Mexico

Notable blogs in English on Mexico

Photo of the Week

Top stories on Mexico