Thanks there Vic and glad to know you are interested in this kind of material. Yeah, Mexico has huge potential, and has indeed many things great now, but some very rough ones as well. All best there and keep in touch.
Claudia has done wonders for hedge funds shorting the Peso against the US Dollar. It was like 16.5 Pesos to the dollar under AMLO, and after her latest response to Trump, it's bumped up close to 21 Pesos to the dollar. Trump's new Treasury secretary is a hedge fund short seller, so Trump admin clearly knows what's going on. I would look for Trump to further take action against Scheinbaum by making press releases that cause the Peso to fall even more -- this will force her to respond. She's already backtracked and called for calm in financial markets.
Thanks there Joe, and a good point I hadn't thought of - but really could be a big factor, pushing up the dollar versus the peso for financial interests. Yeah, that is quite a whack on the currency.
Trump just put out a post about an hour and a half ago and said this-
"Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border. We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!"
"Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!"
"I will be working on a large scale United States Advertising Campaign, explaining how bad Fentanyl is for people to use - Millions of lives being so needlessly destroyed. By the time the Campaign is over, everyone will know how really bad the horror of this Drug is."
The past two days maybe just a PR campaign for Trump and Sheinbaum to show their voters that they are aware of the problem and are acting on those concerns. Concerns about weapons was very superficial and absolutely no specifics about cartels obtaining military grade weaponry. European and Israeli arm shipments to the Mexican military and state and local police have a problem with invoices not adding up and cartels are siphoning off arms from these shipments. US military arm shipments to Mexico are amazingly suffering from the same invoice problem. The Pentagon has failed government audits for years. CIA is massively involved in brokering illegal arms deals around the world with armaments that was originally scheduled for the Ukraine. None of this is even being discussed in the media here in the US. At least Mexico has called for investigations on how the cartels are receiving US military grade weaponry the past year.
So did Trump in a roundabout way admit that fentanyl is being trafficked from Canada? Huge bust of fentanyl in British Columbia way have woke up somebody in the US but tariffs will not solve this issue since neither country has any effective enforcement on 90% of the Canadian border. Trump must be channeling the decrepit spirit of Ronald Reagan to purpose such an idiotic advertising campaign against fentanyl use. What a waste of money and most people do not realize that fentanyl is used in anesthesia for surgeries in hospitals.
There is a huge sarcastic outcry in social media, political pundits and politicians about the gall of Mexico's president to even suggest that the United States consumption of drugs is a real problem and contributes to the power of the cartels. The refusal of anybody in this country to take responsibility for the complicity in the violence and murder by Mexican drug cartels would be laughable to the extreme except for the destruction our drug use has caused. What is laughable is the consumption of pharmaceutical drugs and the blind acceptance of taking vaccines and flu shots has killed a hell of a lot of people more then fentanyl overdoses and alcoholism combined.
And the sad reality continues with podcasts featuring ex-Delta Force soldiers proclaiming the macho claims that Delta Force can destroy the cartels, politicians in bigger numbers are expressing the support for military solutions and the promotion of the hideous policy supported by Democrats and Republicans alike-Peace through Strength.
Great update and fantastic insight as always. Yes, they are both speaking to their bases and making deals. This is international politics in the populist era.
That will be an interesting problem for your new president. Of course the fentanyl problem doesn’t have anything to do with the US being a national of addicts.
I suspect her best solution is to do the “yes Mr President, we’re working on it” answer. In other words kiss his ass a bit and carry on. That seems to work. They’ll be no shortage of shiny objects to distract him.
Yeah, I agree - the previous two Mexican presidents who dealt with Trump handled him pretty diplomatically and he didn't really hurt Mexico. But this time it could be different. There seems to be a more nationalistic feeling in the air - but let's see...
You could be right but I don’t know if the nationalistic feeling includes paying higher prices or not being able to get product at Walmart because he’s hammering Mexico and China. It will include immigration itself though. We’ll see how that plays out.
It's interesting to see if this trade war ends up hurting Mexico to the point were we see another uptick of Mexican immigration to the states. As well as the cartels FTO designations. Something which trump wouldn't want obviously
Ahh man, I really hope it doesn't turn into an actual trade war - that they work it out before hand. I think a real trade war would wreck a lot of damage and then I fear things could get ugly. But then as a pundit, I find it easy to build up catastrophic scenarios in my head!
And going back to mencho's nephew being arrested in riverside is still wild. Given that I briefly used to live in riverside myself. I live in a city that is part of the county of riverside now. I wonder how many Mexican narcos from Mexico are living quietly here in so cal. I know zeta and gulf cartel family members lived in Texas before. Like the Trevino relatives. They had a horse racing money laundering scheme too
Of course this isn't anything new. Remember Arellano felix hid in LA. And I wonder how many Colombian narco relatives lived in Miami and NYC back then too
The absolute journey that was in watching this. You - at the time of recording - speculate on the potential tarries, while I’m watching knowing that he very much *did* have tarrifs …. Even for islands that exclusively have penguins living on them! And then, due to coincidental timing, by the time the 15 minutes of the video were up … He had then announced that he was pausing the tarrifs for 90 days!! He cannot be a serious person!
Even those closest to him will go live on the news and say something to support what he’s recently said only for him to about turn and show them up!
Reporting on him when you know by the time your words will go to print / online that they may already be redundant must be an absolute nightmare for a political reporter!
Yeah exactly, financial reporters are like on edge right now, not knowing what the hell to say or what has changed in the last half hour. I think some people with inside info are minting money though in the turmoil.
I really enjoy these episodes on the mexico economy/Geopolitics
I hope one day that Mexico can get its house in order and fulfill its potential
Thanks there Vic and glad to know you are interested in this kind of material. Yeah, Mexico has huge potential, and has indeed many things great now, but some very rough ones as well. All best there and keep in touch.
Claudia has done wonders for hedge funds shorting the Peso against the US Dollar. It was like 16.5 Pesos to the dollar under AMLO, and after her latest response to Trump, it's bumped up close to 21 Pesos to the dollar. Trump's new Treasury secretary is a hedge fund short seller, so Trump admin clearly knows what's going on. I would look for Trump to further take action against Scheinbaum by making press releases that cause the Peso to fall even more -- this will force her to respond. She's already backtracked and called for calm in financial markets.
Thanks there Joe, and a good point I hadn't thought of - but really could be a big factor, pushing up the dollar versus the peso for financial interests. Yeah, that is quite a whack on the currency.
You're the best Ioan
Appreciated and back at yer Stevie
Trump just put out a post about an hour and a half ago and said this-
"Just had a wonderful conversation with the new President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. She has agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border. We also talked about what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States, and also, U.S. consumption of these drugs. It was a very productive conversation!"
"Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!"
"I will be working on a large scale United States Advertising Campaign, explaining how bad Fentanyl is for people to use - Millions of lives being so needlessly destroyed. By the time the Campaign is over, everyone will know how really bad the horror of this Drug is."
The past two days maybe just a PR campaign for Trump and Sheinbaum to show their voters that they are aware of the problem and are acting on those concerns. Concerns about weapons was very superficial and absolutely no specifics about cartels obtaining military grade weaponry. European and Israeli arm shipments to the Mexican military and state and local police have a problem with invoices not adding up and cartels are siphoning off arms from these shipments. US military arm shipments to Mexico are amazingly suffering from the same invoice problem. The Pentagon has failed government audits for years. CIA is massively involved in brokering illegal arms deals around the world with armaments that was originally scheduled for the Ukraine. None of this is even being discussed in the media here in the US. At least Mexico has called for investigations on how the cartels are receiving US military grade weaponry the past year.
So did Trump in a roundabout way admit that fentanyl is being trafficked from Canada? Huge bust of fentanyl in British Columbia way have woke up somebody in the US but tariffs will not solve this issue since neither country has any effective enforcement on 90% of the Canadian border. Trump must be channeling the decrepit spirit of Ronald Reagan to purpose such an idiotic advertising campaign against fentanyl use. What a waste of money and most people do not realize that fentanyl is used in anesthesia for surgeries in hospitals.
There is a huge sarcastic outcry in social media, political pundits and politicians about the gall of Mexico's president to even suggest that the United States consumption of drugs is a real problem and contributes to the power of the cartels. The refusal of anybody in this country to take responsibility for the complicity in the violence and murder by Mexican drug cartels would be laughable to the extreme except for the destruction our drug use has caused. What is laughable is the consumption of pharmaceutical drugs and the blind acceptance of taking vaccines and flu shots has killed a hell of a lot of people more then fentanyl overdoses and alcoholism combined.
And the sad reality continues with podcasts featuring ex-Delta Force soldiers proclaiming the macho claims that Delta Force can destroy the cartels, politicians in bigger numbers are expressing the support for military solutions and the promotion of the hideous policy supported by Democrats and Republicans alike-Peace through Strength.
Great update and fantastic insight as always. Yes, they are both speaking to their bases and making deals. This is international politics in the populist era.
That will be an interesting problem for your new president. Of course the fentanyl problem doesn’t have anything to do with the US being a national of addicts.
I suspect her best solution is to do the “yes Mr President, we’re working on it” answer. In other words kiss his ass a bit and carry on. That seems to work. They’ll be no shortage of shiny objects to distract him.
Yeah, I agree - the previous two Mexican presidents who dealt with Trump handled him pretty diplomatically and he didn't really hurt Mexico. But this time it could be different. There seems to be a more nationalistic feeling in the air - but let's see...
You could be right but I don’t know if the nationalistic feeling includes paying higher prices or not being able to get product at Walmart because he’s hammering Mexico and China. It will include immigration itself though. We’ll see how that plays out.
Yeah, let's see. He's not even in power yet!
It's interesting to see if this trade war ends up hurting Mexico to the point were we see another uptick of Mexican immigration to the states. As well as the cartels FTO designations. Something which trump wouldn't want obviously
Ahh man, I really hope it doesn't turn into an actual trade war - that they work it out before hand. I think a real trade war would wreck a lot of damage and then I fear things could get ugly. But then as a pundit, I find it easy to build up catastrophic scenarios in my head!
And going back to mencho's nephew being arrested in riverside is still wild. Given that I briefly used to live in riverside myself. I live in a city that is part of the county of riverside now. I wonder how many Mexican narcos from Mexico are living quietly here in so cal. I know zeta and gulf cartel family members lived in Texas before. Like the Trevino relatives. They had a horse racing money laundering scheme too
Yep, the Zeta money in horse racing was really hiding in plain sight. They even had a horse called "No. 1 Cartel" and another called "El Piloto..."
Yeah apparently it was easy for the FBI to nail them because of that.
I mean, you might think about a more gringo name for a horse to put them of the scent, like "Sea Biscuit" ...
Of course this isn't anything new. Remember Arellano felix hid in LA. And I wonder how many Colombian narco relatives lived in Miami and NYC back then too
So will the 25% tariff apply to crude oil & gasoline imported from CA & MX ?
He says everything - although I have my doubts if he really goes nuclear on this one, at least not for too long...
The absolute journey that was in watching this. You - at the time of recording - speculate on the potential tarries, while I’m watching knowing that he very much *did* have tarrifs …. Even for islands that exclusively have penguins living on them! And then, due to coincidental timing, by the time the 15 minutes of the video were up … He had then announced that he was pausing the tarrifs for 90 days!! He cannot be a serious person!
Yeah, the Trump tariffs are quite a spectacle to live through. I think we will need months at least to understand what it all means.
Even those closest to him will go live on the news and say something to support what he’s recently said only for him to about turn and show them up!
Reporting on him when you know by the time your words will go to print / online that they may already be redundant must be an absolute nightmare for a political reporter!
Yeah exactly, financial reporters are like on edge right now, not knowing what the hell to say or what has changed in the last half hour. I think some people with inside info are minting money though in the turmoil.