{"id":19170,"date":"2026-05-08T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-1-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T21:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T03:32:47","slug":"mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-1-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/es\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-1-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"MI\u2019s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter \u2013 May 1, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreign press coverage<\/strong><\/h3>

Foreign press coverage has again roiled Mexico\u2019s news cycle (following the Washington Post breaking the story of CIA presence in Chihuahua last week) with Puente News reporter Steve Fisher writing in the LA Times that the Trump administration would soon launch an \u201canti-corruption campaign\u201d against Mexican officials. U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson hinted not so subtly at this escalation at the groundbreaking of the US $3-billion Pac\u00edfico Mexinol methanol plant in Sinaloa last week, warning that corruption \u201cslows progress and threatens investment\u201d before closing with: \u201cWe may soon see significant action on this front. So, stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>

The other shoe dropped Wednesday with U.S. indictments of Sinaloa Governor Rub\u00e9n Rocha Moya and nine other current and former officials, including a Morena federal senator and Culiac\u00e1n\u2019s mayor (also of Morena). Charges include drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder\u2014and, notably, allege that Rocha colluded with the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel to win the 2021 gubernatorial election. The U.S. is seeking extradition, which Sheinbaum said at her Thursday ma\u00f1anera would only proceed if Mexican authorities are presented with \u201cconvincing evidence\u201d, reiterating her rejection of foreign interference in internal affairs. Rocha has vehemently denied the charges, framing the indictment as an attack on the 4T.<\/p>

Before the indictment news bombshell, the WSJ published a piece headlined \u201cClaudia Sheinbaum Is Learning the Price of Appeasing Trump,\u201d arguing that \u201ceach time Sheinbaum gives President Trump an inch, he demands a mile\u201d. The reporters credit her unflappable approach, but question how long her acquiescence can hold as U.S. actions alienate her base. Some Mexican outlets accused the piece of misogyny for suggesting she\u2019s drawing on her experience managing AMLO \u2014described as a \u201cclassic alpha male\u201d \u2014 to handle Trump. The takeaway seems summed up by a quote from Jorge Casta\u00f1eda: \u201cI disagree with almost everything she has done. But I don\u2019t know what she could have done differently.\u201d Bloomberg, meanwhile, reported that a faltering economy has pushed Sheinbaum\u2019s approval rating to its lowest point yet, at 51% in April; though their polling has consistently shown her less popular than polls published in Mexican outlets.<\/p>

In other security news, foreign press covered the arrest of top CJNG capo \u201cEl Jardinero\u201d in Nayarit, another win for Mexican law enforcement; Garc\u00eda Harfuch also acknowledged use of U.S.-shared intelligence to execute the operation. The NYT and AP followed up on the CIA agents story, noting Sheinbaum\u2019s effort to \u201cdefuse\u201d bilateral tensions while insisting unauthorized U.S. operations on Mexican soil should not happen again. The Guardian, in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center and Open Society Foundations, published a lengthy investigation into illegal logging and cartel violence against communities in the Sierra Tarahumara\u2014the same Chihuahua region where the CIA officers and two Mexican law enforcement officers died in a car wreck after a counternarcotics operation.<\/p>

On the economic front, the FT covered Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada\u2019s push to enshrine rent control and other housing policies in the CDMX constitution, telling the now-familiar tale of gentrification in Condesa, Roma, and nearby neighbourhoods like Tacubaya (now apparently christened \u201cSouth Condesa\u201d by developers). Experts quoted in the piece note that a shortage of low-income housing and \u201cthe market\u2019s excessive focus on premium housing\u201d is more to blame than the influx of foreigners since the pandemic. The WSJ explored the temptation of cheaper Chinese cars available just across the border for U.S. consumers, and Bloomberg reported on Moody\u2019s upcoming June decision on Mexico\u2019s investment-grade credit rating, which was assigned a negative outlook in late 2024.<\/p>

Blogs destacados en ingl\u00e9s sobre M\u00e9xico<\/strong><\/h3>

Ioan Grillo dove into the details of the U.S. indictments within hours of the news breaking on CrashOut, and explored how members of Los Chapitos imprisoned in the U.S. likely provided testimony. Grillo reached out to the lawyer for Joaqu\u00edn and Ovidio Guzm\u00e1n, who wouldn\u2019t confirm if his clients gave evidence, but told him, \u201cI think the indictment really speaks for itself as to where the evidence came from\u201d. In Mexico Decoded, Viri R\u00edos explored whether Mexico meets the criteria of a \u201cnarco-state\u201d, concluding that it doesn\u2019t, but that \u201cthe persistence of organized crime stems less from universal political complicity than from institutional fragility at the local level\u201d. The Mexico Political Economist analysed the triumphs and tribulations of the rapidly-expanding Secretar\u00eda de Bienestar (Welfare Ministry), which will account for roughly 27% of the government\u2019s annual discretionary budget by 2027; a third of Mexicans are beneficiaries of at least one of its programmes. In Materia Gris, Eduardo Garc\u00eda covered Sheinbaum\u2019s reversal on fracking and the criticism from (some) of her political allies. And Miranda Intelligence\u2019s daily Substack over the week covered key developments in energy, fintech, public affairs and politics in Mexico.<\/p>