Stoppage time
What I've gotten right and wrong so far in 2026 (part I)
Welcome to The Mexpatriate.
At the beginning of the year, I shared some predictions about the direction the national conversation would go in 2026 and even though we’ve passed half-time, I’ve decided to evaluate how The Mexpat Oracle (no, not brought to you by Polymarket) has performed so far.
Part I: 5 things I predicted we’d hear more about in 2026
Ricardo Salinas Pliego: The Grupo Salinas magnate has continued to make noise, though much of the media’s focus has been on the struggles of his business empire (TV Azteca began bankruptcy proceedings in March) and a steep decline in his net worth. While Tío Richie continues to rail relentlessly against Sheinbaum and the 4T, accusing them of censoring TV Azteca along with being corrupt communists running a narco-regime, talk of his political future remains ambiguous. The “combative billionaire” was profiled by the Financial Times in January and Bloomberg in April and in both, there were hints at his presidential aspirations; his bombastic style could be what the bloodless right-wing opposition thinks it needs.
When Salinas Pliego arrived at Estadio Azteca for the opening game of the World Cup, bystanders hurled insults (though there were some in the crowd who cried “¡presidente!”) and he was recently called out by Sheinbaum for reposting an offensive X post encouraging ICE to “do your thing” to a group of Mexicans in New York cheering the arrival of the president for the World Cup final. Right now, I think he’s giving Trump photo-bombing the Spanish national team more than firing up a viable opposition to Morena.
High-profile court cases: Mexico’s first directly elected Supreme Court has indeed made significant rulings this year—finally resolving 93 pending injunctions filed by Salinas Pliego’s companies, expanding indigenous community’s rights to self-government, upholding the right of the UIF (Financial Intelligence Unit) to freeze accounts without a court order—but there has been as much focus on the court’s productivity as high-profile or controversial decisions. Under the 2024 judicial reform, the court’s two salas (chambers) were eliminated, leaving all cases for the entire court to deliberate. This has slowed the SCJN down: this court resolved 1,218 cases from September 2025 to February 2026, a 37% decline compared to the previous court during the the same period. A bill passed in late May included establishing two secciones (similar but not the same as salas) to help the court more efficiently manage the caseload, among other corrective tweaks to the judicial reform.
Court returns to session tomorrow and upcoming noteworthy cases on the docket include several on mandatory pre-trial detention (prisión preventiva oficiosa); challenges to parts of AMLO’s 2023 mining law reform; a repeatedly delayed case about whether IVA can be charged twice and the legality of the permanent export of a privately owned Frida Kahlo painting.
Independent opposition in Michoacán: The political plot in Michoacán is thickening fast: Ramón Álvarez Ayala (“R1”), a crime boss who was imprisoned in 2012 and released by a judge in 2022, was arrested this week as the alleged mastermind behind the November murder of the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo. Federal security chief Omar García Harfuch asserts the motive was Manzo’s confrontational stance against the CJNG, but Manzo’s widow and political heiress, Grecia Quiroz, says the case is far from closed. Quiroz—who became mayor of Uruapan after Manzo’s death and is a potential Michoacán gubernatorial candidate in 2027—claims there were also political motives to silence her husband, pointing to ex-governor and current Morena federal deputy, Leonel Godoy. Álvarez Ayala’s brother, Roldán, was once the mayor of Apatzingán and worked with Godoy, who has called all accusations against him false and politically motivated. Morena has also issued a statement to distance itself from Álvarez Ayala, noting he was expelled from the party in 2025.
Morena is facing a tough fight in the 2027 race, with an unpopular governor, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, in office and recent polling showing Quiroz (and other opposition candidates) gaining ground. In June, she presented an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in support of Movimiento Ciudadano’s action against a state electoral reform that they claim makes it harder for independent candidates to run—and confirmed that while she appreciates MC’s support, she will continue to represent the Movimiento del Sombrero that her husband founded.
Lithium: I was ready to call this a bum prediction, though on July 24, the government’s strategic plan for LitioMx for 2026-2030 was published in the federal gazette and made some headlines. LitioMx, the government agency created in 2022 after AMLO “nationalized” the country’s untapped lithium resources, will focus on broad objectives across exploration, research, industrialization and the establishment of regulatory frameworks. In the global context of falling battery prices due to oversupply, the future exploitation of the mineral is now focused more on supplying projected domestic needs—explicitly linked to the development of the government-backed EV Olinia—than generating revenue (which was always a long shot considering that Mexico’s lithium is concentrated in clay deposits and difficult to extract). In parallel, the U.S. and Mexico have continued talks about how to increase production of other critical minerals, such as copper, silver, zinc, lead, molybdenum, and manganese, in order to strengthen regional supply chains.
(North) America First: Needless to say, I predicted that there would be U.S. arm-twisting behind the scenes of the events of the “Year of North America” but also that Trump would want to “project North American strength in a multipolar world.” Instead, we’ve seen an airbrushed image of unity that is about as convincing as Trump’s tan while the administration exerts pressure on every front. While it’s a win for Mexico that the U.S. hasn’t pulled out of the USMCA completely, by pushing the treaty into its annual review era, the country is stuck with the consequences of chronic uncertainty. The deaths of 17 Mexican citizens in ICE custody or in encounters with their agents since Trump took office and dismissal of Mexico’s requests for investigations has further chilled the relationship.
I’ll be back with part two in next week’s newsletter. As always, please send me an email at hola@themexpatriate.com or leave a comment below with your questions, comments or feedback.