MI’s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter – Apr. 10, 2025

April 17, 2026
12:00 pm

Foreign press coverage

Following The Economist’s controversial article on Mexico’s ‘’broken economy’’, (which elicited a rebuttal letter to The Economist from the Finance Ministry), this week it was Bloomberg’s turn to wade in. The Bank of Mexico’s controversial rate-cut decision on March 26 was analyzed from a different, more personal, angle in JP Spinetto’s Bloomberg opinion column. Spinetto turned the spotlight on Banxico’s low-profile governor, Victoria Rodríguez Ceja, to argue that her “lackluster” leadership has contributed to a “subdued” central bank that is struggling to curtail inflation. Rodríguez became the first woman to lead Banxico in 2021 and rarely makes public appearances or gives interviews, which Spinetto sees as part of broader weakness in the bank’s communications strategy (to avoid irking Palacio Nacional).

In business news, Bloomberg published a detailed piece on the pros and cons of the Viva-Volaris merger and how it will test the new antitrust regulatory agency, and profiled Mexico’s most aggrieved billionaire, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who shares Trump’s “love of debt, aggressive tax avoidance and brass-knuckled legal tactics.”

Mexico’s crisis of disappearances was covered by the LA Times and The Guardian (and in a reflexively anti-Morena O’Grady WSJ opinion column) this week after the government issued a contentious new report indicating the registry of over 130,000 missing persons is inflated, and also lashed out at a UN committee’s decision to forward the disappearances issue as a “crime against humanity” to the General Assembly. The Financial Times reported on Guadalajara’s security preparations for the arrival of 3 million tourists during the World Cup, quoting one analyst who noted that it will also be “a very good few weeks for criminal businesses.”

The Guardian also covered a UN special rapporteur’s investigative mission (this one, at the Mexican government’s invitation) to document the impact of environmental contaminants in Mexico, who concluded that the country is facing a “toxic crisis” and has become a “garbage sink” for U.S. hazardous waste. In less bleak news, the debate over the fate of the Gelman Collection (or “Frida Kahlo trove”) got in-depth treatment in The New York Times this week and the LA Times covered the inauguration of the spinoff of Contramar in Las Vegas, “arguably the most significant opening by a Mexican chef in the city.”

Notable blogs in English on Mexico

Viri Ríos breaks down the data on Sheinbaum’s approval ratings in Mexico Decoded this week and finds some fresh insights: Claudia has made inroads in demographic groups that AMLO had alienated (middle-class professionals) and lost some ground among the traditional Morena base (rural voters in southern states). Ríos points out that this means “Sheinbaum’s capacity to mobilize voters comes from a fundamentally different place than Obradorism did” and points towards Morena’s momentum beyond its charismatic founder. Ioan Grillo published a comprehensive “risk guide” ranking the safety of Mexican states and cities this week and The Mexico Political Economist profiled the freshly-confirmed 38 year-old new foreign minister, Roberto Velasco. In Materia Gris, Eduardo García argued for putting a “democracy clause” in the USMCA, which he says should apply to all three countries, but seems mostly to envision as a way to put the brakes on the “systematic dismantling of democratic architecture” in Mexico.

CrashOut Media – Where Is Safer And Where Is More Dangerous To Go In Mexico?
Mexico Decoded – The Surprising Math Behind Mexico’s President Approval Ratings
Materia Gris – North America Should Copy Europe: Add a Democracy Clause to the USMCA
The Mexico Political Economist – The Empirical Diplomat: Who’s the man helming Mexico’s Foreign Ministry?

Photo of the week

People hold pictures of missing persons in front of the National Palace during the commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared in Mexico City, on 30 August 2019. Photograph: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images

MI’s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter – Apr. 10, 2025

Foreign press coverage

Notable blogs in English on Mexico

Photo of the week

Other articles on Mexico