The overlooked impact of Trump’s auto tariffs
by Luis Lozano.
Donald Trump is obsessed with imposing tariffs to vehicles made outside the United States, but I do not think he has a clear objective for it other than the protection of American jobs. Let’s assume that works. The issue here is if saving American manufacturing jobs will make American cars more appealing to the global markets. Put a different way: will reviving American automotive manufacturing guarantee that the US keeps up with technological changes being led by Asian brands? Unlikely…
The most important thing that the North American automotive business has experimented with in the last 40 years has been NAFTA. NAFTA created an environment of competitiveness that the US had lost with Lyndon B Johnson’s tariffs. Those tariffs disconnected the industry from other markets and needs, ironically hurting the competitiveness of the American brands. They resulted in the United States losing its ability to lead an industry which it invented for the world. It is impressive to see that the US government making the same mistakes today.
Sheinbaum reaches for AMLO’s script with Jalisco horror
by David Agren.
As the horror of an extermination camp discovered in Jalisco state hit the national headlines, President Claudia Sheinbaum found a familiar victim: former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, her mentor and predecessor, who routinely floated conspiracies and spoke of campaigns against him amid rising crime and violence.
“Leave him alone,” an annoyed Sheinbaum said at a morning press conference, referring to AMLO and the “narcopresidente” accusation. “All that again against President López Obrador, no, when the state prosecutor’s office had the property guarded.”
Sheinbaum won office promising to construct “the second level” of AMLO’s populist political project, the “fourth transformation.” But she’s already abandoned his stated security policy of “hugs, not bullets,” as she fends off U.S. pressure on fentanyl and migrants.
Trump & Sheinbaum find it takes two to tango in the delicate USMCA dance
Since the start of the second Trump administration this January, relations between Mexico and the United States have been active, tense, volatile but overall polite. Despite the US administrations’ tough talk on immigration and trade - including the imposition of some tariffs as in the case of steel and aluminum - and the fact that American unilateral military action in Mexican territory against the cartels still remains a possibility, Mr. Trump has maintained a somewhat restrained demeanor with his Mexican counterpart, President Claudia Sheinbaum.
After a telephone call on March 6, both leaders agreed for a second time to a truce on trade tariffs until April 2 for goods imported to the US under the United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA). More notable perhaps, Mr. Trump emphasized his respect for Ms. Sheinbaum and noted that relations are moving along albeit the difficult context. The tone certainly contrasts with that used by the US president with Canada, his other North American partner. As of now, Trump still asserts that Canada should become the 51st state, a notion that not only infuriates Canadians but baffles many Americans.
Misinformation clouds discovery of alleged extermination camp in Jalisco
by Madeleine Wattenbarger.
The news has shaken Mexico. Earlier this month, an anonymous report directed families of disappearance victims to a ranch in the town of Teuchitlán, Jalisco, that the state prosecutor’s office had searched in September.
“When we entered, the door was open,” recounts Norma Ángel, member of the search collective Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco, which received the report. The group began live-streaming what they found: piles of clothing, hundreds of pairs of shoes, pits of ash with burnt bones. “They’re completely incinerated bones, most of them very small. If you touched them, they fell apart.”
The videos went viral. A media firestorm ensued, fueled by anonymous testimonies that describe the Izaguirre Ranch as a training camp where young people were lured by false job offers and hundreds tortured, killed, and incinerated. The image of the hundreds of shoes moved the country. On Saturday, search collectives across Mexico hosted dozens of simultaneous vigils for the presumed victims of Teuchitlán as part of a National Day of Mourning.
