{"id":19234,"date":"2026-05-22T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-15-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T21:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T03:34:15","slug":"mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-15-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miranda-partners.com\/es\/news-and-content\/miranda-intelligence\/foreign-press-chatter\/mis-mexico-foreign-press-chatter-may-15-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"MI\u2019s Mexico Foreign Press Chatter \u2013 May 15, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top stories on Mexico<\/strong><\/h4>

The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report this week on the ongoing intra-cartel war in Sinaloa, retracing the conflict from El Chapo\u2019s capture and conviction through the internecine betrayals that have \u201cunfolded like a Shakespearean drama\u201d \u2014 leaving over 3,000 dead and 3,600 disappeared since September 2024. The authors quote experts and government sources who say the Mayitos faction is emerging stronger against Los Chapitos, an assessment echoed by both Ioan Grillo in his latest substack CrashOut report and organized crime reporter Keegan Hamilton.<\/p>

As Sheinbaum continues to resist pressure to hand over Rocha Moya, the news cycle keeps busy. A briefly viral CNN report alleging that the CIA was behind a car bomb that killed a suspected Sinaloa Cartel member and his driver in Mexico City in March (followed up by The New York Times which reported sources as saying the CIA was \u2018\u2019not present on the site of the attack and were not advising the Mexicans in person when the operation was carried out\u2019\u2019 but \u2018\u2019provided intelligence and planning support\u2019\u2019) drew emphatic rejections from both the Mexican government and the intelligence agency; Sheinbaum described the report as \u201ca fiction the size of the universe.\u201d In other crime coverage, Reuters covered the Mother\u2019s Day protest in Mexico City led by relatives of the disappeared, and the NYT profiled Cecilia Flores, the country\u2019s highest-profile searching mother, following the recent identification of the remains of one of her two missing sons.<\/p>

Reuters reported on Wednesday that V\u00edctor Rodr\u00edguez Padilla\u2019s days as Pemex CEO were numbered, with the executive increasingly \u201csidelined\u201d by the president \u2014 and on Thursday the rumors were confirmed: Sheinbaum announced he would be replaced by the company\u2019s CFO, Juan Carlos Carpio. An energy consultant quoted in Bloomberg noted that the move does not signal \u201cmeaningful changes\u201d at the company, which remains saddled with $79 billion in debt and declining production. Pemex was also a contributing factor in S&P\u2019s downgrade of Mexico\u2019s credit outlook from stable to negative this week.<\/p>

In cultural news, AP reported on ulama, the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame that \u201csurvived only in the remote pockets of northwestern Mexico before its late 20th-century rebirth.\u201d Singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas (born in California, raised in Tijuana) and her new album\u00a0Norte\u00f1a<\/em>\u00a0were profiled by both the NYT and the LA Times. AP also covered 40-year-old goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa as he prepares for what could be his sixth World Cup, pending the final roster announcement.<\/p>

This week also proved a useful reminder to treat alarmist X accounts and Substacks on US\/Mexico news with suitable skepticism. A post from previously obscure\u00a0Le\u00f3n Barrena Rodr\u00edguez & Partners LLP<\/em>\u00a0(\u2018\u2019Where legal precision becomes market advantage\u2019\u2019, 14k followers on X) claiming that the U.S. was allegedly investigating a major Mexican financial institution with \u2018\u2019sanctions expected\u2019\u2019 briefly went viral (1.1mn views on X), amplified by broad circulation in business-minded WhatsApp groups, and even caused nervousness in Mexico\u2019s financial markets.<\/p>

Blogs destacados en ingl\u00e9s sobre M\u00e9xico<\/strong><\/h4>

Ioan Grillo examined in CrashOut how the Mayos have benefited at the expense of the Chapitos following the indictment and ouster of Rocha as Governor of Sinaloa. Earlier he looked at the explosive CIA assassination story, concluding that while it\u2019s certainly possible, considering the Trump administration\u2019s escalation of the drug war, the story still has a lot of holes. He also raised the possibility that this kind of tactic (whether the allegation is true or not) is a deliberate form of \u201cpsychological warfare\u201d against cartel operatives. In Mexico Decoded, Viri R\u00edos returned to the topic of crime reduction in Mexico, with a focus on the extraordinary 41% decline in homicides over the past 18 months, according to official statistics \u2014 she acknowledges the skepticism over government data, but in her analysis finds that even if there were some statistical fudging, it wouldn\u2019t negate the broad downward trend in violent crime across most of Mexico\u2019s states. The Mexico Political Economist reported on the petrochemical sector and the \u201clethal embrace\u201d of Pemex, which has not only hollowed out its own petrochemical division over decades, but also failed to supply the raw materials private companies need to operate. And Miranda Intelligence\u2019s daily Substack covered key developments in energy, fintech, public affairs and politics in Mexico.<\/p>