From the U.S. designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, to Mexico handing over a total of 92 presumed cartel operatives to the United States, to the downfall of El Mencho, the most-wanted criminal leader in the country—who was killed last month during an operation by Mexican armed forces in Tapalpa, Jalisco. How much of this signals we are witnessing a new era of the drug war? What is truly unprecedented and what is déjà vu?

My guest in this episode is Benjamin T. Smith, professor of Latin American history at the University of Warwick and author of “The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade,” a meticulously researched and essential reference for understanding the historical context behind the news cycle. Our conversation covers the origins and history of the “kingpin” strategy, how the CJNG operates, the ongoing civil war in the Sinaloa Cartel, how Sheinbaum’s security policy differs (or not) from her predecessors’ and much more.

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Episode Notes

• Ben’s books are available for purchase here.

• Read the investigation about the decline in opium cultivation referenced in the episode here.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

“We are living through difficult times in the world. Three weeks ago, no one would have thought that fertilizers would be 60% more expensive, or that a barrel of oil would exceed 100 dollars,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum in the inaugural address of the national banking convention on Thursday. Despite the uncertainty, she said “we must remain optimists,” and prodded the banking sector to deliver on its promises of more credit access and lower fees (more on this below).

She also opened another front in the battle against cash: digital payments will become mandatory at all gas stations and toll booths later this year. Only around 30% of gas station sales transactions are paid with bank cards today. To push this transition, the government and banks are working on increased uptake of the Bank of Mexico’s free digital payments platform, CoDi (which is now available on mobile phones). Meanwhile, digital remittances from the U.S. overtook cash for the first time in 2025 according to Banxico data, accounting for 50.4% of transactions—in 2020, 81% of remittances were still in cash.

In today’s edition, I cover five economy and business stories from the national conversation, including Mexico’s biggest crop of Forbes billionaires yet, the contraction of manufacturing and the formal launch of U.S.-Mexico trade talks in Washington.

Read more

My guest in this episode is Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul, an award-winning investigative journalist and author whose work has focused on violence against reporters in Mexico, freedom of expression and other human rights issues. Our conversation covers her experience reporting on the trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, her project cataloguing the published work of murdered journalists, and how the work of local reporters and other community leaders overlaps—and exposes them to violence.

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Episode Notes

• You can buy Alejandra’s books “Causa de muerte: Cuestionar al poder” and “El Chapo Guzmán: el juicio del siglo” here.

• You can view the Defensores de Democracia archive here.

• Listen to the podcast “Voces Silenciadas” here.

• To learn more about the history of the press in Mexico, check out The Mexpat Interview with Andrew Paxman.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

As the Iran war continues to rock global energy and stock markets, the immediate concerns for most governments are those that hit voters in the wallet: retail fuel prices and inflation. President Sheinbaum announced on March 11 that the government had renewed a voluntary price cap pact with the private sector to keep regular gasoline below 24 pesos per liter; she said lowering the federal IEPS tax to stabilize prices (which would hit the government in the wallet) would only be implemented “if necessary.” The government announced on Friday it would begin subsidizing diesel by reducing the tax, after the Pemex wholesale price of diesel rose 10% last week. Meanwhile, Pemex crude prices rose to US $93 a barrel—but exports have fallen to their lowest levels in 15 years, as government policy has prioritized meeting domestic demand and reducing fuel imports. Mexico still imports about half of its gasoline (almost all of it from the United States).

Inflation crept up in February to 4.02% and March seems unlikely to bring a reprieve as the domino effects of war in the Middle East unfold in other sectors, like agriculture (Mexico imports most of its fertilizer and much of it transits through the Strait of Hormuz). According to Barclays analysts, the inflationary effect of the gas price shocks “should be contained” in Mexico, if the conflict doesn’t drag on too long.

In tonight’s dispatch, I cover five stories about tech and the environment, from oil washing up on beaches of Veracruz and Tabasco to the new government-led effort to reduce online violence against women.

Subscribe now

Oil spill, leak or seep?: Nearly two weeks ago, residents of coastal communities in southern Veracruz and northern Tabasco started reporting oil washing up on the beach and damaging their fishing nets. As locals cleaned up the mess, awaiting answers and support from the authorities, the tar spread—affecting 230 kilometers of coastline and the livelihoods of at least 14,000 people in the area who depend on fishing and tourism. Pemex denied there had been any spills from the company’s platforms or tankers, and Veracruz Governor Rocío Nahle (Morena) echoed this, hypothesizing that it could instead be a naturally-occurring seep of crude on Tuesday, March 10. However, by Thursday, Nahle had different information: there had been a spill, but it was from a privately owned oil exploration ship operating in Tabasco, and she said it had been contained. Without naming the company responsible, she took the opportunity to make a political jab, noting it was one that had been awarded contracts during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto. Federal environmental agencies are now coordinating cleanup efforts with the navy and Pemex, but locals are worried about the damage that’s already been done. One of the contaminated sites is a lagoon that an indigenous community has spent decades restoring in Pajapan, Veracruz: “The collective restoration work by 240 men and women now hangs in the balance.”

Take Back the Night on TikTok?: The president ruffled a few feathers with her decision to celebrate International Women’s Day surrounded by men and women in uniform, leading an event honoring the women of Mexico’s armed forces (42,660 serve in the National Guard, army and air force). But this wasn’t the only item on her women’s rights agenda for the week. On March 11, the administration announced that Google, Meta and TikTok had signed a voluntary agreement with the government to combat digital violence against women and girls. “This is very good for the country, and very good for Mexican women,” she said, highlighting that the initiative will strengthen cooperation between the tech platforms and the government to prevent, detect and respond to online abuse. X was conspicuously, though unsurprisingly, absent—Secretary of Women Citlalli Hernández said they were invited to participate, but declined. Sheinbaum noted she decided not to pursue legal action against Elon Musk for accusing her taking orders from drug cartels in a post on X, and that “communication on these platforms is a major debate…it raises the question of where freedom of expression ends and where attacking a person begins.” According to the government, 18.9 million people were victims of cyber harassment in Mexico in 2024, and 10.6 million were women (2.8 million of them aged 12-19). Meanwhile, Secretary of Education Mario Delgado said Mexico is considering similar age restrictions on social media use as Australia, though he emphasized any policy would need to stem “from the grassroots, from the lived experiences of parents, different communities, and teachers.”

Attack in paradise: Erik Saracho, an environmental activist, journalist and founder of a conservation NGO, Alianza Jaguar, was shot in his home in the beach town of San Pancho, Nayarit early on the morning of March 11. Saracho survived the attack, but remains hospitalized; he had just returned from taking his daughter to the school bus. Saracho has a long history of vocal resistance to developments in the area and had been given government protection as a journalist and human rights defender, including a “panic button” that he activated after he was shot—it took police nearly an hour to arrive at the scene. “We are all afraid for our lives here now,” said his colleague Indira Santos at a gathering of locals the day of the attack. Saracho and his fellow activists had a meeting with the mayor and developers a few days before to address concerns about a new beachside residential complex in the town of 1,500. The environmental group claimed there were irregularities in the development’s permits. Saracho had already suffered consequences for getting into legal battles with developers—his bank accounts were frozen eight years ago and a gag order imposed following his confrontations with the Punta Paraíso condominium development. On Friday night, the state prosecutor’s office released a security camera video showing the attack, and offering a 100,000-peso reward for information about the shooter. During AMLO’s term (2018-2024), at least 123 environmental and human rights defenders were murdered in Mexico, and 14 were killed last year.

Plugging in to El Bajío: Two U.S. companies (Invisible Urban Charging and ATX Smart Mobility) plan to invest US $500 million to install 38 electric vehicle charging stations and deploy 140 electric buses central Mexico, starting in Querétaro and then expanding to CDMX, Puebla and the State of Mexico. While the focus is on infrastructure for commercial fleets, company executives said they see this as part of building a broader charging ecosystem and capitalizing on the growing uptake of electric vehicles (sales of EVs and PHEV rose 38.5% in 2025 in Mexico). “We’re looking at a ratio of 280 cars per charger and the ratio should be 40 cars per charger…so there is a huge opportunity to deploy chargers, not only in Mexico but Latin America globally,” said Eduardo Kuri of Miami-based ATX Smart Mobility.

Money in the seed bank: Mexico is home to one of the world’s most significant agricultural research centers and the largest gene bank for maize and wheat, the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) in Texcoco. The non-profit emerged from a pilot program to develop higher-yield, resistant crops funded by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1940s, led by agronomist Norman Borlaug—who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions to global food security. Today, the CIMMYT has 1,300 employees with projects in over 40 countries, but it has been struggling with funding; the dismantling of USAID reduced the center’s budget by US $60 million. However, instead of being left to whither on the vine like other aid beneficiaries, the State Department funneled US $32 million into the center in December, and on Feb. 18, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson announced a US $40 million government award for the center’s research, celebrating bilateral scientific collaboration. But that’s not the only inspiration for U.S. largesse: China, now the world’s largest funder of agricultural research, had shown a bit too much interest in the CIMMYT (the State Department money came from a fund to counter Chinese influence). The center welcomed the U.S. support for research that “[helps] farmers produce more with fewer resources, reduce vulnerability to climate shocks, and reinforce supply chain resilience, contributing to more stable markets both domestically and globally.”

The Mexpat Stat

1,238 wildfires…

…have been recorded by the national forestry service from Jan. 1-March 5, a 30% increase compared to the same period of 2025. The states with the most fires include the State of Mexico, Jalisco, Mexico City, Michoacán and Puebla (the majority are brush fires, only 2% have affected woodland). Peak wildfire season in Mexico is March-May.

Questions or feedback? Send me an email at hola@themexpatriate.com or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Leave a comment

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

Life (and death) imitated art at the funeral of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (El Mencho) on Monday in Zapopan. Footage of the glinting gold-plated casket, women hiding beneath black umbrellas in the blazing Guadalajara sun, heavily armed soldiers on alert, wreaths of red and white roses depicting a rooster—El Mencho was known for his passion for cockfighting—looked like they could have been filmed for an episode of Narcos Mexico. A bitter contrasting image to the narco fosas where thousands of bodies end up cruelly disposed.

The question of how much art—in a very generous use of the term—can imitate life without legal consequence was also part of the national conversation this week, as you’ll read below. In today’s dispatch, I cover five arts and culture stories, ranging from Sheinbaum’s boost to the film industry, to the peculiar “therian” phenomenon, to the death of a beloved Mexican artist.

Read more

What does all this mean for Mexico’s film industry, which has suffered in recent years from budget cuts to cultural programs? How does this position Mexico globally in film production?

My guest in this episode of The Mexpat Interview is Sarah Hoch, founder and director of the Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF), which will celebrate its 29th edition this year and has become one of the most important festivals in the country, particularly for young filmmakers. Our conversation ranges from the reaction to Sheinbaum’s reform, to AI and the film industry to her experiences as a gringa who lives in between two cultures.

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (please rate and review!) and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

I first got wind of the downfall of El Mencho via my daughter’s 5th grade WhatsApp group chat on Sunday morning. One of the mothers advised us of a “critical situation” in some cities because “an important capo” had been captured. I expected to see that a regional crime boss had been arrested but then…holy shit.

Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes wasn’t just one of the most-wanted criminals in the world, he was a nearly mythical persona; “El Señor de los Gallos” was an elusive, menacing figure who inspired fear, loyalty and even adulation in narco-corridos. His men shot down a military helicopter with a rocket launcher in 2015 after an attempted arrest, and he was the mastermind of the 2020 attack on Omar García Harfuch when he served as the head of police in Mexico City. His Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has a vast territorial presence, operating somewhat like a franchise—there are an estimated 100 smaller gangs using its “brand”—and it has extensive infiltration in local governments.

Throughout the day, I received “forwarded many times” messages, links to Facebook posts and screenshots—the pastiche of sources we have all become accustomed to parsing when big news stories break. It was soon clear that false information was circulating; as usual, before the truth had time to put its pants on. One officially-worded statement from the Guanajuato government (forwarded via WhatsApp) said a curfew would be implemented statewide by 3 p.m., as word also spread that a fire had been put out at one local store here in San Miguel de Allende and two shopping centers had evacuated and closed. However, the state government never actually implemented a curfew, only issuing stay-in-place recommendations to the population (they also canceled school on Monday).

While there certainly was a coordinated and violent reaction from cartel operatives around the country—250 road blockades in 20 states, over 200 fires set in convenience stores and at least 60 deaths (including 25 National Guard members, 30 sicarios and one bystander, a pregnant woman in Zapopan, Jalisco)—a number of widely-shared videos of buildings on fire and armed men at gas stations and airports have been debunked as either AI-generated or old footage. Every day the internet feels less like a portal to knowledge and more like a high-stakes game of Chinese whispers.

But as bleak as this atomized information landscape looks, there are bright spots: the small, independent outlets delivering on-the-ground reporting and sharp analysis (you’ll find links to recommended reading below).

In today’s dispatch, I share some of my own observations about the national conversation surrounding El Mencho’s death, along with four other security + politics stories.

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

The annual U.S. Census Bureau trade data published this week gives Mexico both a leverage boost and a sore point in negotiations with the White House. Despite Trump’s tariff bravado—which was just chastened today by the U.S. Supreme Court—and declining exports in the automotive sector, Mexico’s total exports to the U.S. still managed to set a new record of US $535 billion in 2025. Mexico also edged out Canada as the largest recipient of U.S. exports in the world (15.5% of the total).

While Mexico’s imports from the U.S. ticked up last year, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico hit a historic high of US $196.9 billion. This will ruffle the feathers of trade hawks in Washington, but they should be reminded that Mexico’s growing trade surplus has come at China’s expense. Trade between the U.S. and China contracted by 28.7% in 2025, and U.S. imports of electronics and advanced technology from Mexico have accelerated—regional supply chains are gaining strength.

In today’s dispatch, I cover five economy + business stories, including the Canadian business mission to Mexico, rent increase caps in Mexico City and the pushback faced by Royal Caribbean in Mahahual.

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

President Claudia Sheinbaum began the week with a migraine, and his name is Marx Arriaga.

Arriaga was the lead architect of the “Nueva Escuela Mexicana” (New Mexican School or NEM), an educational model designed to bring the ideals of López Obrador’s “Fourth Transformation” into the classroom. He served as the director of educational materials at the Department of Public Education (SEP) from 2021 until last Friday, Feb. 13, when he accused security guards of attempting to “evict” him from his office; he then dared them to arrest him “for the crime of making textbooks.” Secretary of Education Mario Delgado confirmed that Arriaga had been let go, though he had been offered the standard consolation prize for undesirable officials: an embassy abroad.

But Arriaga is no diplomat. He refused to leave his office for over 100 hours, claiming he hadn’t been properly notified of his termination. His replacement, Nadia López, was announced on Monday, but Arriaga held out until Tuesday afternoon when he received an official dismissal letter and finally departed—carrying a portrait of Karl Marx under his arm.

Sheinbaum told the press on Monday that Arriaga (who had been hurling insults at the “sewage” of the SEP for months on X) had refused to consider any modifications to the NEM textbooks, despite requests from teachers and his superiors. She emphasized that the textbooks don’t belong to any individual, while also defending Arriaga and his work as a loyal member of the 4T—undoubtedly, trying to minimize the opening of an internal rift in Morena. According to the president, the first disagreement arose over the inclusion of more women in the textbooks. However, Arriaga has denied this, claiming instead that he was asked to remove historical events like the 2014 Ayotzinapa atrocity and the “guerra sucia” of the 1960s-1980s.

“A textbook is a living tool, an instrument of support for teachers and students in their education; therefore, it must always be subject to updates and improvements,” read a statement from the SEP published on Feb. 14.

As Arriaga dug in and lashed out at what he claims are “neoliberal” attempts to destroy AMLO’s legacy, Morena’s opponents were almost giddy as spectators of the showdown. Not only have they lambasted the 4T for laying waste to Mexican education for years, they are also hoping for a civil war within the ruling party.

In tonight’s edition, I’m republishing a piece I wrote about the NEM when it first kicked up controversy in 2022. At the time, the new textbooks were on the cusp of being distributed in the country’s pandemic-gutted schools, causing a moral panic (verging on a red scare) and a flurry of lawsuits. Over three years later, the effects of the NEM are hard to assess since the government shuttered the independent agencies that had previously evaluated school system performance. However, Mexico did participate (under duress) in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2025 and the survey results—testing math, reading and science skills—will be published later this year.

The state of education in Mexico and “La Nueva Escuela Mexicana”

Originally published on Nov. 8, 2022

On Oct. 19, 2022 the Department of Public Education (SEP) temporarily suspended a pilot program to implement a new curriculum in 960 public schools. This followed rulings by federal judges in favor of lawsuits brought against the program.

The judges essentially accused the institution of using students as guinea pigs “to determine the pros and cons of the new educational model, without taking into account the negative repercussions this could have on these students’ rights to an education.”

The department has announced they will challenge the rulings.

As the SEP has changed hands (a new director was announced in August) and confronts (or attempts to dodge) an acute educational crisis in the wake of the pandemic, the decision to implement comprehensive curriculum changes seems misguided at best. However, from the hurried perspective of a president whose lofty ideological aspirations and mega-projects have been truncated by global events, there is no time to waste.

“It is the dream of all specialists in pedagogy from the left…imagining a different kind of education, where the student is not a product, where everything isn’t made into a business…but rather is community-based,” said director of educational materials, Marx Arriaga, in a recent interview. When the outline of the program was announced in May of this year, Arriaga described the many sins the curriculum sought to remedy —classism, racism, misogyny—but provided few details about how exactly this would be achieved.

Some critics were appalled by what they viewed as a curriculum focused on “indoctrination” more than education. The impetus behind the self-described “Nueva Escuela Mexicana” is to bring the crusade against neoliberalism into the classroom, to shift the focus from “competencias” (competition or competence) to “compartencias”. This latter addition to the Spanish language (a play on the word “to share”) doesn’t appear to have the capitalists too frightened yet.

Following the failure to launch the program, Arriaga took his beleaguered textbooks on the road last week, initiating a “caravan” to promote the curriculum across the nation. Arriaga has claimed that Mexico would be the first country to try this alternative approach to public education in history; the goal being nothing less than to “decolonize” the minds of the next generation of Mexicans, liberating them from centuries of European structures of thought.

So what is different about this curriculum? Does it really set out to brainwash students into mini-AMLOs promoting the “Cuarta Transformación” as some fear? Or will it inspire a “revolution of consciousness” as claimed by Arriaga?

“The fundamental point of the connection between the content and the core concepts in a subject is achieved through instruction, which situates the points of articulation of the knowledge and understanding within teaching contexts (in which the teacher brings to bear his or her teaching knowledge) and learning situations applied to the daily life of the students.”

After 162 pages of this, I’m not sure how to answer the questions above, but the general takeaways are:

• Community

• Plurality

• Inclusion

• Human rights

Grades are grouped together and labeled as “phases” and subjects are “educational fields,” which are supposed to be taught via a form of project-based learning.

“The intention is not to teach knowledge, values and attitudes so that children and adolescents can assimilate and adapt to the society they belong to, neither is the function of school to mold human capital from primary to higher education in response to the needs established by the labor market. Schools should create happy children and adolescents.”

Student and teacher evaluations are also modified in the plan, with a focus on “feedback,” “dialogue” and “self-reflection” rather than the “supposed quantification of knowledge that can be represented by numerical grades.” If the priority is happy students, I suppose it’s hard to argue with this approach.

The document also makes pointed reference to earlier attempts at educational reform: “…the rhetoric of quality as the basis for reducing the education of students and the work of teachers to instrumental criteria…opened the doors to the commercialization of primary education.”

The 2013 constitutional reform under President Enrique Peña Nieto looked to standardized testing, teacher evaluations and the weakening of the teacher’s union as mechanisms to improve outcomes on metrics that Mexico’s students had repeatedly failed. López Obrador reversed the reform in 2019.

As pundits and politicians argue about the ideological ramifications of this plan, it’s hard not to hear echoes of the recent debates playing out across schools in the U.S., which similarly reveal the tension between a proclaimed desire to create a more equitable society via textbook, and the messy reality of superimposing top-down change.

In Mexico, the focus has been on class more than race, and to a lesser extent, on gender. But in both countries, the diversity of schools across vastly heterogenous and unequal societies can create barriers to change that educators or policymakers may not anticipate. It turns out that families often prioritize the individual needs and aspirations of their children over the more abstract interests of society.

I feel I can approach this topic as a less excitable outsider, one who comprehends deeply the arguments for alternative education. I was home-educated from first grade through high school, which is one of the reasons our family had the flexibility to travel back and forth to Mexico. My sisters and I enjoyed more freedom than our peers—days were not as routine, we could always visit museums or libraries during off hours—and we were the beneficiaries of a highly individualized education. My daughters attend a very small Waldorf-inspired private school, which at times strikes me as a cross between Hogwarts and Little House on the Prairie. And yes, I believe in protecting the fleeting magic, imagination and wonder of childhood, a gift I was granted during my own.

Is this gift a luxury, a privilege for those who can afford it? Or is it a brave middle finger in the face of conformity? Perhaps it is both.

Over the years I have come to understand how much of my singular childhood was enabled by circumstance: I grew up in a one-income household, with my mother at home. I came from at least two generations of college graduates. My sisters and I were not at risk of being shut out from many opportunities, even if we learned algebra, literature and science at a different pace and in different ways than our peers. Instead of viewing public educational systems simply as tools of conformity and creatures of industrialism, I now see their profound value as a public good; a besieged but valiant effort to provide equal access to what has historically been off limits to most of humankind.

What we teach in schools has always been subject to ideological meddling, controversy and the zeitgeist of the era. What we take for granted in today’s textbooks may have been considered uncouth, heretical or dangerous only a few generations ago.

This reform by the AMLO administration is a logical extension of the philosophy driving the “4T.” In a sense, the structure of modern schooling is anathema to their vision of a just society and when critics call out the importance of public education as a tool for social mobility, they may respond “so what?” Isn’t that really a euphemism that keeps the capitalist illusion in place? The concept of social mobility is rooted in the notion that acquiring certain education and skills will help you level up in this game we play, allowing one to aspire beyond humble origins, to detach from the moorings of class and “be free.”

Is this how it usually plays out in reality? It would be hard to answer “yes” in modern Mexico.

Here are a few sobering statistics from a 2019 study on social mobility:

• 74 of 100 Mexicans from the poorest segment of society will never break out of poverty in their lifetimes.

• Only 5% of children whose parents who didn’t attend school will obtain a college degree; and just 13% will complete high school.

Meanwhile, a representative from UNICEF recently put the educational regression in Mexico in stark terms: a 2021 assessment of 1600 students (8-11 years old) revealed that 66% had not achieved basic reading skills, and 97% lacked basic math skills. “We are talking about educational consequences that will turn into income and quality of life consequences…a generation of students may never recover the years of learning lost.”

The promises of social mobility may be broken for many, but are the promises of new textbooks and new terminology any more likely to endure?

Since I wrote this piece, my daughters have moved to a SEP-incorporated private school, where I’ve seen firsthand the sometimes awkward marriage between the social justice spirit of the NEM and a business-minded school culture that lauds entrepreneurship.

I wonder if the contradictions cause confusion, or cancel each other out. Maybe (Karl) Marx would tell me to relax, and let the dialectic unfold.

Questions or feedback? Email me at: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you enjoy The Mexpatriate, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription.

Subscribe now

My guest in this episode of The Mexpat Interview is Alex González Ormerod, founder of The Mexico Political Economist and author of “La derecha no existe (pero ahí está)” which explores the state of the political right in Mexico. The book combines history, political philosophy and reportage to show how the disarray of the right is not only a problem for Mexican conservatives, but for Morena itself. In this conversation, we discuss the identity crisis of the National Action Party (PAN), the emergence of new populist right movements, the intersection of religion and politics and what’s on the horizon in upcoming elections.

Episode Notes

• Read The Mexpat Interview with Alex about Trump 2.0 and the Mexican economy here

• Catch up on recent coverage in The Mexpatriate of Ricardo Salinas Pliego and Eduardo Verástegui

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (please rate and review!) and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

A growing measles outbreak in Mexico has brought attention this week to one of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s most lackluster policy inheritances from López Obrador: the public health system.

As politicians play a game of who’s-to-blame table tennis (more on this below), the administration has tried to redirect the national conversation, making noise about a new agreement with U.S. biotech company Moderna to develop and produce vaccines in Mexico.

“There will be joint scientific research…to be able to develop vaccines that are of interest to our country, such as against dengue or even cancer,” said Sheinbaum in a video statement on Monday. Following the controversy over AMLO’s “100% Mexican” Patria COVID-19 vaccine (which has had “some problems” with production, according to Sheinbaum), this agreement signals a tweaked approach—bringing in big foreign biotech to work with the state-owned BIRMEX and a private Mexican pharmaceutical manufacturer (Liomont). The five-year agreement includes a gradual technology transfer to Liomont so it can manufacture mRNA vaccines. Since Moderna was just denied a review of its new mRNA flu vaccine by the U.S. FDA, the company will also be accelerating the search for more markets for its products.

In today’s dispatch for paid subscribers, I cover five environment + tech stories from the national conversation. Watch your inbox on Sunday for the next episode of my podcast, The Mexpat Interview—Alex González Ormerod and I discuss why the political right has lost its way in Mexico, and how it could make a comeback.

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

I’m writing this from Mexico City, where I’ve been dipping my toe into “La Semana del Arte” (stay tuned for more soon). Wandering through galleries and museums, I’ve been thinking about the importance of physicality; of bodies moving through space, of non-algorithmic encounters and of standing before a canvas or a sculpture or another tangible expression of human imagination, and not scrolling past it.

In today’s dispatch, I cover five arts + culture news items. If you have questions or comments, please email me at hola@themexpatriate.com.

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

In today’s edition, I take a look at the labor law reform currently under discussion in Congress that will (eventually) bring the 48-hour work week down to 40 hours in Mexico—and why some say it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

If you have feedback or questions, please email me at hola@themexpatriate.com or leave a comment below. I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with an arts + culture edition of The Mexpat Dispatch.

“There must be something wrong with work, or the rich would have a monopoly on it.”

—Mario Moreno “Cantinflas”

One of the headline items on the legislative agenda since Congress returned to session on Feb. 1 is the long-anticipated 40-hour work week reform.

The draft bill President Claudia Sheinbaum sent to the Senate this week is the product of meetings the Department of Labor organized last year with the business sector, as well as labor unions and NGOs, and according to Secretary of Labor Morath Bolaños, it will most benefit workers in manufacturing, retail, hospitality and transportation.

However, some lawmakers and labor activists who have been advocating for this reform for years claim it has been hollowed out to favor employers’ interests. The legislation maintains the six-day work week, instead of cutting to five days as in earlier proposals, and allows a maximum of 12 overtime hours per week at double pay (an increase from nine under current law).

Jorge Álvarez Máynez, the president of Movimento Ciudadano (MC) and 2024 presidential candidate, called the bill a “bait and switch,” warning that it could even be regressive for labor rights.

“This one difference [maintaining the six-day week] makes it necessary to open a broad, transparent debate…what is at stake here is very significant in the daily lives of workers,” said Federal Deputy Patricia Mercado (MC) to Congress on Monday. “This is an opportunity to vindicate the most authentic spirit of social justice of the 1917 Constitution.”

Work smarter, not longer

Mexico’s Federal Labor Law was first enacted in 1931, the same year the country joined the International Labour Organization (ILO), which would establish the norm—though not globally adhered to—of a 40-hour work week. Ninety-five years later, the official work week in Mexico is still 48 hours (with only one mandatory day off) and Mexicans work more hours than anyone else in the 38 member countries of the OECD (13.4 million work 48 hours or more per week).

Why is this the case?

The answer is the same in many developing economies: low wages, lack of capital investment and a large informal economy. Mexican workers make up for low pay with volume of hours, and many are employed in industries that are labor-intensive (manufacturing, agriculture) or are precariously self-employed.

Mexico’s workforce ranks last in productivity in the OECD, though this should come as no surprise since economists calculate this using output (real GDP) as the numerator and hours worked as the denominator. In Latin America, however, Mexico is less of an outlier. In Brazil—the largest economy in the region—GDP output per hour is roughly US $17, while it is about US $20 in Mexico. And most other countries in Latin America also have a long work week; last year, Chile started a gradual reduction from 45 to 40 hours by 2028, and Colombia has reduced by one hour a year since 2023, to reach 42 this year. In this context, Sheinbaum’s plan to shave eight hours off the work week by 2030 (two hours per year starting in 2027) looks ambitious.

The slow path to reform

The reduction to a 40-hour work week has been on the ruling party’s agenda since López Obrador’s term—but repeatedly postponed. In 2022, a proposal was first introduced in Congress and the bill advanced in 2023, but then stalled. Sheinbaum made this reform one of her term’s 100 commitments when she took office in 2024.

Why has the ruling party, in all its reforming zeal, failed to deliver on this one?

“The reason is fear,” wrote analyst Viri Ríos, back in January 2025. “Doing it [reforming the law] would be a labor earthquake greater than raising the minimum wage…The fear is that businesses won’t be able to sustain it, but this concern is unfounded.” Ríos argues that since Mexico is far below the global average when it comes to the labor share of income as percentage of GDP (and lags regionally as well), there is clearly room for more distribution to workers.

From the employers’ side, there is concern about the pressure this law would apply on the country’s small and medium-size firms (up to 250 employees), which account for 90% of Mexican businesses, and will see their labor costs increase by 20% per hour. The bill also mandates employers implement digital tracking of worker hours (subject to inspection), which requires an investment.

Some have argued the reform could push more businesses and workers into the informal economy. “This is a risk that arises as long as there is no growth in the country, suboptimal conditions for business and no incentives,” said Juan José Sierra, president of the Mexican Employers’ Federation (Coparmex) in a December interview. “If we talk only about labor reforms and don’t talk about competitiveness and productivity, costs go up, sales go down—and where does that leave you?”

Running out of time

The Senate could vote on this bill as soon as next week. Sheinbaum will need it to become law soon in order in order to deliver a 40-hour work week by the end of her term, which could explain some of the concessions made to the business lobby. The president also needs them on her side to bring her industrial policy, Plan México, to fruition.

On Wednesday morning, Secretary Bolaños told reporters that there is a possibility the bill would be modified to reduce the work week from six to five days.

“What we have delivered to the Senate is the result of broad reflection…That’s how we know the strength of this measure, which will lead to great benefits for the workers of this country.”

If you enjoy The Mexpatriate, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription or by sharing it!

Subscribe now

In this episode of The Mexpat Interview, I talk to former journalist and research professor Andrew Paxman, author of “Mexican Watchdogs: The Rise of a Critical Press since the 1980s,” about the historically co-dependent relationship between the press and the government, the more recent evolution of a free press and the threats it faces today in Mexico.

We also discuss Andrew’s personal experiences working in media in Mexico in the 1990s, as well as Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s antagonistic relationship with the press, and what has changed since Claudia Sheinbaum took office.

Episode Notes

• You can order a copy of Andrew’s book “Mexican Watchdogs: The Rise of a Critical Press since the 1980s” here.

• Consult the Artículo 19 database of journalists murdered in relation to their work in Mexico here.

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

President Sheinbaum has again put out a fire on her northern flank after a “friendly” phone call with President Trump on Thursday, who effusively congratulated Mexico on having “a wonderful and highly intelligent Leader” in a Truth Social post. Sheinbaum said they discussed “various topics” in the 40-minute chat and claimed Cuba wasn’t on the agenda. However, since Bloomberg reported that Pemex had canceled its January shipment to the island, Sheinbaum has been dancing around the question of whether Mexico was ending its oil deliveries. Late on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order that would apply tariffs to any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. Neither Pemex nor the Department of Energy (Sener) have officially commented, and Sheinbaum said this morning that her government will suggest that the U.S. take over sending oil to the island to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

At home, the electoral reform tinderbox seems to be getting less dangerous for the ruling party. On Wednesday, Morena president Luisa María Alcalde called the alliance with the PVEM (Green Party) and PT (Labor Party)—who had been sounding mutinous—“stronger than ever.” The draft bill is still a work in progress, but it is likely to be the hottest reform on the agenda after Congress returns to session this Sunday, Feb. 1. Even the opposition (despite dubbing the proposal the “Maduro Law”) has shown some signs of compromise.

In today’s dispatch, I cover six politics + security stories, from the latest expulsion of traffickers to the controversy over armored vehicles for Supreme Court justices. Another episode of The Mexpat Interview drops on Sunday—a conversation about the press and power in modern Mexico with CIDE professor Andrew Paxman.

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

A draft of this piece has been sitting on my Google Docs shelf for awhile, like an open map that fiendishly resists being folded back into its proper shape. I sometimes find the writing process feels this way; an act of destructive creation, of momentary insight followed quickly by “well, what do I do with this now?”

But here it is, readers: my analysis of the national conversation about sovereignty.

If you have feedback, I’d love to hear from you. Please email me at hola@themexpatriate.com or leave a comment below. I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with a politics + security edition of The Mexpat Dispatch.

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”

—Sir Terry Pratchett

Since the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, the simmering issue of Mexican sovereignty has boiled over in the national conversation.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has been unwavering in her sovereignty mantra, yet the precarious nature of this autonomy is increasingly evident. Her government delivered another tribute of 37 Mexican traffickers to the United States last week and FBI Director Kash Patel was in Mexico City when one of the bureau’s most-wanted—a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder-turned-trafficker—was taken into custody the next day.

“How exactly did he turn himself in? Those details we don’t know,” Sheinbaum admitted to a reporter on Tuesday when asked whether Ryan Wedding had indeed surrendered, as reported by her government and by the U.S. Embassy. She is adamant that this wasn’t an arrest made by U.S. law enforcement on Mexican soil. She also defended her government’s independent decision-making when it comes to Pemex sending (or suspending) oil shipments to Cuba.

Sheinbaum’s political opponents appear unmoved by her balancing act. Neither the PAN nor the PRI condemned the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro and politicians from both parties have made not-too-subtle comparisons between Sheinbaum and the former Venezuelan president. Magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego—a possible 2030 presidential contender—praised the U.S. action and said it “gives a clear hope” to Mexicans. “Trump is the best president Mexico has had,” posted far-right political figure Eduardo Verástegui on X last week. The Morena party posted on its X account soon after: “There are some who forget that calling for intervention by foreign powers in matters that only concern Mexicans has a name: treason.”

But beneath the political rage-bait lies a deeper, older question: Can Mexico save itself?

The sovereignty absolutists

“The last time the U.S. came to Mexico, they took half the territory.”

This has been Sheinbaum’s repeated mañanera reminder in response to Trump’s threats of U.S. military action. Technically, the last time there was a U.S. incursion in Mexico was more recent—when General Pershing and his soldiers came to hunt down Pancho Villa in 1916—but…point taken, Claudia.

The modern nation-state of Mexico has faced both external and internal threats to its sovereignty—territorial integrity, the monopoly on legitimate use of force and autonomy to govern—throughout its history. While organized crime groups haven’t been interested in seizing political power for ideological ends, their expanding influence since 2006 has led to questioning the autonomy and legitimacy of the State from within. AMLO and Sheinbaum have both referred to the Calderón administration as a “narco government” and they stood with the families of the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa who cried “It was the State” during Peña Nieto’s term.

However, since AMLO swept to power in 2018, the rhetoric of upholding sovereignty in the face of foreign meddling—not only from the superpower to the north, but also from global organizations like the U.N. or critical European MPs—has dominated the discourse. This was accompanied by renewed enthusiasm for the 20th-century non-interventionist “Estrada Doctrine” in foreign policy: steering clear of calling out leftist authoritarian governments in Venezuela and Cuba, and leading to diplomatic estrangement with Ecuador and Peru.

For the sovereignty absolutists, this bedrock principle is the foundation of peace and should be applied regardless of democratic bona fides. They see a call for outside intervention in Mexico as not only unpatriotic, but as a fantasy that history has proved dangerous.

The sovereignty-flexible

While Mexico wasn’t exactly enthused by U.S. neocon foreign policy in the early 21st century, the country’s two PAN sexenios (2000-2012) did bring a distancing from leftist regimes in the region, and a closer alignment with the United States. The Mérida Initiative security agreement, signed in 2007 and active until AMLO withdrew from it, brought in billions of dollars of U.S. military and technological “assistance” and gave more operational latitude to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Mexico.

After their electoral walloping in 2018, the opposition to Morena discovered their warnings of AMLO becoming another Hugo Chávez had fallen on deaf ears, and instead, voters continued to turn the political map maroon in subsequent elections. Ex-President Ernesto Zedillo went so far as to say AMLO had “killed” Mexican democracy, with Sheinbaum’s complicity. And as violence continued, some claimed intervention would be warranted as the State’s legitimacy had been irrevocably compromised.

Not all these voices came from opposition politicians jostling for votes. Former poet turned anti-crime activist Javier Sicilia, who led the first major grassroots peace marches in response to the explosive violence triggered by the war against the cartels, was vehemently critical of both Calderón and Peña Nieto, but also became bitterly disillusioned with AMLO. He suggested in 2019 that the U.N. Blue Helmets be called in to help Mexico confront “a profound humanitarian tragedy…that we can’t handle on our own.”

For the interventionists, sovereignty without legitimacy is itself a fantasy.

“What is evident is that the simplistic version of sovereignty, which never really meant much, has run its course,” wrote former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jorge Castañeda of Sheinbaum’s juggling act in an op-ed published on Wednesday.

“Coordination, never subordination”

Timing, in politics as in life, is everything. AMLO’s inward-looking nationalism has gone from seeming anachronistic to prescient as the world moves at increased velocity away from globalization and neoliberal triumphalism. Opponents of the 4T are still struggling to find a defensible position in this narrative battle.

By occupying the nationalist space, Morena leaves the opposition at risk of looking treacherous, and by overtly cooperating on security with the U.S. and making a lot more arrests than her predecessor, Sheinbaum is deflating their arguments that she is soft on crime.

This approach so far appears to be an astute one on the home front. Sheinbaum’s approval ratings continue to rank above 70%, and a December Enkoll poll found that regardless of how they would vote, the majority of respondents identify with Morena, followed by “no party.”

“Anyone in the opposition who reckons that a Trump attack on Mexican targets would erode the president, and thus benefit the cause of her political adversaries, is failing to grasp that on the one hand, they’re making themselves stateless, and on the other suicidal,” wrote journalist Salvador Camarena this week.

The view from this “middle” power on the full-blooded return of history is more jaded, and less dismayed, than it might be in Ottawa or Brussels. After all, history should have taught Mexicans by now—including those who want to see Morena fall—to have few illusions about U.S. power.

Going deeper: For more historical background on Mexico’s foreign policy and the Estrada Doctrine, check out the latest episode of Mexico: The Podcast.

If you enjoy The Mexpatriate, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription or by sharing it!

Subscribe now

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

This year, the World Economic Forum in Davos may have generated as many gasps, long-winded speeches and yes, even fashion fodder, as we’ll see at the Oscars. President Trump lurched from bored to Board of Peace, Canadian PM Mark Carney pronounced the comatose “rules-based” global order dead at the scene and French President Emmanuel “Maverick” Macron’s speech was drowned out by his sunglasses.

President Sheinbaum sent her lead business advisor Altagracia Gómez and Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena, and there were a handful of Mexican CEOs in attendance. On Thursday, Sheinbaum hailed Carney’s “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu” speech and said it was “very much in tune with these times.”

It’s a strange historical turn of events that it falls to Mexico—under the leadership of a nationalist leftist president who once protested NAFTA—to defend North American free trade. Since Carney’s decision to make trade with China free-ish in a “new strategic partnership” and Trump’s dismissals of the USMCA as “irrelevant,” Sheinbaum still holds out hope for its survival: “We believe it is in the interest of all three countries to maintain the trade agreement.”

Today’s letter is the first edition of “The Mexpat Dispatch.” Every Friday, I’ll cover five news stories grouped by category (economy + business, arts + culture, politics + law, or science + tech).

Read more

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

In today’s edition, I take a look at the latest official statistics on drug use in Mexico and what they reveal (or not) about the panorama of addiction in the country.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to watch or listen to the latest episode of The Mexpat Interview, a conversation with journalist Sam Quinones about how synthetic illicit drugs have transformed addiction and trafficking.

Not getting high on the supply

Mexico has been the throughway for every drug on its journey to the United States—from marijuana to cocaine to fentanyl and meth—for over a century. But the trajectory of drug use and addiction in Mexico has been quite different than north of the border. Even as U.S. demand skyrocketed and the Mexican drug trade boomed in the 1960s and 70s, drug use remained low in Mexico. Under U.S. pressure, the Mexican government adopted increasingly prohibitionist drug policies, which have loosened little since. While recreational cannabis use was decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2021, it has yet to be fully legalized and commercialized.

Mexico’s low rate of drug use and addiction is sometimes attributed to cultural generalizations—AMLO often credited the strength of Mexican family values—or to alleged restrictions imposed by traffickers on selling their most potent drugs at home (if not for ethical reasons, then for their bottom line). Another factor is simply a dearth of data.

There have been warning signs over the last decade that Mexico’s immunity to widespread drug abuse could be waning. From increased requests for addiction treatment and anecdotal reports of spikes in overdose deaths in border cities like Mexicali and Tijuana, to fentanyl detected in “party” drugs in Mexico City and in medications sold at unregulated pharmacies in beach resorts. However, official monitoring and data collection has been sporadic.

The national survey of drug, tobacco and alcohol consumption (ENCODAT) was skipped during AMLO’s term (one of many victims of austerity), which means that the survey just published in December 2025 was the first in nine years. Let’s take a look at the findings.

Adult use goes up, teen use goes down?

The 2025 ENCODAT showed that 14.6% of adults have tried an illicit drug, up from 10.6% in 2016, however the government focused attention on another data point: in adolescents, this trend went in the opposite direction.

In 2025, 4.1% of 12 to 17 year-olds reported they’d consumed an illegal drug, compared to 6.2% in 2016. President Sheinbaum celebrated this, along with a reported reduction in non-medical fentanyl use (just 0.1% of adults reported using in the last year), as indicators that the government’s “Stay away from drugs: Fentanyl will kill you” campaign is working. The survey reported drug dependence in 0.6% of adults—the same percentage as reported in 2016. Cannabis and cocaine were the top two most-consumed illicit drugs in both 2016 and 2025, but methamphetamines now come in third, surpassing inhalants.

Wet blankets from skeptical experts piled on quickly after the survey was released. One analyst wrote that the survey’s “image of Mexico has more filters on it than a social media photo.”

For example, the survey rather improbably found that the average age for first consuming alcohol is 18.2 years old, while the age for first trying an illegal substance rose from 17.8 in 2016 to 20.1 in 2025. Not only does this belie everyday experience in schools and homes around the country, it contradicts other data collected in national health studies that have found alcohol use in children as young as 10 years old. The results may reveal more about the way the survey was conducted—with parents nearby as minors answered the questions—than reality.

Another criticism leveled at the 2025 ENCODAT is that the sample size is much smaller—from 56,877 respondents in 2016 to just 19,200 in 2025.

Unregulated rehabs and unreported overdoses

The limitations of the ENCODAT mean that we need to look elsewhere to fill in the gaps.

In June 2025, the government published a report on addiction treatment demand that showed some startling statistics. In 2014, only 9.1% of people seeking treatment via private and public rehab centers were hooked on meth, and in 2024 that number surged to 51%. There were only three cases of requests for fentanyl addiction treatment recorded in 2014, but in 2024 there were 465 cases (actually a decrease from a peak of 518 cases in 2023).

In 2023, there were 247 addiction rehabilitation centers registered in the country, but authorities acknowledge that far more unregulated centers exist (as many as 3,000). Many of these are “anexos” where addicts are often involuntarily sent and held—sometimes for years. Anexos are frequently founded by former addicts and serve as the only treatment option for poor families. They have also become notorious as targets for cartel recruitment and violence. The 17 year-old sicario who gunned down Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo on Nov. 1 (and was himself executed shortly after) was reported to be a meth addict recruited from a drug rehab center by a Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) operative.

“One out of every two of our patients is already reporting methamphetamine use,” said Bruno Díaz, director of research for national juvenile addiction treatment in a recent interview. “We might even see in the coming years that methamphetamines become the main illicit drug of consumption.”

Concern about meth addiction is at least on the government’s radar. At the ENCODAT presentation, Sheinbaum said the public service campaign would switch gears to focus more on meth than fentanyl this year.

And what about drug overdose deaths? Official statistics are very low—in 2022, there were 408 reported deaths from illicit drug overdose nationwide, and between 2013 and 2023, just 114 deaths associated with opioid use. However, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2024 found that the incidence of fatal overdoses in Mexico—while still far lower than in the United States—had doubled between 2005 and 2021. They estimated a rate of 0.79 deaths per 100,000 in 2021, which would have put annual fatal overdoses at just over 1,000 cases (there were 32.4 overdose deaths per 100,000 in the U.S. in 2021).

The authors of the study noted that “it is likely that our estimates are a serious underestimation of the true extent of overdose mortality in Mexico” which “stems from the inadequacy of the current overdose surveillance system in Mexico.”

Going deeper: Benjamin T. Smith’s “The Dope” is essential reading on the evolution of the drug trade in Mexico, and if you want to learn more about anexos, check out “The Way That Leads Among the Lost” by Angela Garcia.

If you enjoy The Mexpatriate, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription or by sharing it! And if you have any feedback, please email me at hola@themexpatriate.com.

Share

Reporter Sam Quinones was one of the first to tell this story—on both sides of the border—in his 2015 book “Dreamland,” followed in 2021 by “The Least of Us,” about the epidemic of fentanyl and meth addiction. Quinones lived and worked as a freelancer in Mexico from 1994 to 2004, and in our conversation, we discuss his experiences at that time, how the shift from plant-based to synthetic illicit drugs has supercharged both addiction and trafficking profits, and how he thinks unchecked capitalism has contributed to the expansion of an addiction economy—legal and illegal—in the world today.

Episode Notes

• Subscribe to Sam’s The Dreamland Newsletter here.

• For more background on Mexican cartels, weapons trafficking and illicit drug flows, check out my 2025 interviews with Ioan Grillo and Chris Dalby.

• LA Times report referenced by Sam in the interview: “Mexico says it doesn’t have a fentanyl problem. New data reveal a hidden epidemic.”

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Questions, commentary or feedback? Email me: hola@themexpatriate.com. And if you enjoyed this conversation, please share it.

Share

Episode Notes

* Subscribe to Sam’s The Dreamland Newsletter here.

* For more background on Mexican cartels, weapons trafficking and illicit drug flows, check out my 2025 interviews with Ioan Grillo and Chris Dalby.

* LA Times report referenced by Sam in the interview: “Mexico says it doesn’t have a fentanyl problem. New data reveal a hidden epidemic.”

You can listen to the audio-only version of this interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and the video version is also available on YouTube.

Get full access to The Mexpatriate at www.themexpatriate.com/subscribe