I apparently made a misstatement in yesterday’s column.
I referred to Mexico as “a full-blown democracy.”
It turns out that I was wrong—at least if you go by the Economist’s ranking of levels of democracy across the world. It has recently demoted Mexico from “flawed democracy” to “hybrid regime,” right in between Honduras and El Salvador.
The reason? “Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [AMLO], continued his efforts to concentrate power in the executive branch. In August, López Obrador said he would seek a total reform of the country’s electoral authorities, considering them biased against his government, and said they are at the service of anti-democracy,” The Economist noted.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 at the bottom (e.g., North Korea) and 10 at the top (Norway comes closest), Mexico fell by .5 points in 2021 to 5.57.
The ranking is based on five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
“A particularly low rating in the political culture category—just 3.13 points out of 10—dragged down Mexico’s total,” reports Mexico News Daily. “The score represents a low level of support for democratic values, and little resistance to the influence of authoritarian figures, military leaders or religious institutions.”
Increased threats to journalists (not to mention outright assassinations) haven’t helped.
Another factor was “illiberal populists”—here meaning AMLO, who nevertheless remains popular among Mexicans generally.
All of this provides some background to AMLO’s comments on the recent moratorium on avocado shipments placed by the U.S.
The Reuters news agency quoted AMLO as saying, rather incoherently, “In all of this there are also a lot of political interests, and political interests, there is competition; they don’t want Mexican avocados to get into the United States, right, because it would rule in the United States because of its quality.”
“In 2021, Michoacán sold 2.26 billion pounds of avocados into the United States, up from 1.9 billion just two years prior,” reports the Washington Post, noting that 8 out of 10 avocados purchased in the U.S. are from Mexico. Furthermore, Mexico’s role in the American avocado industry has grown over recent years, with declines in California cultivation.
In view of these facts AMLO’s claims seem untenable at best.
All political acts exist, of course, in larger contexts and have many dimensions. But as far as the avocado industry is concerned, the obvious answer still appears to be the most correct: the United States shut down imports from Mexico because it is chagrined by cartel involvement.
As I said yesterday, Mexico is a paradox—or a series of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is becoming increasingly authoritarian. On the other hand, it does not have control over a large portion of its territory.
The answer to cartel activity is not easy to find. In the past, growers have formed vigilante groups to protect themselves, only to see those very groups transform into cartels themselves.
For AMLO, it is certainly easier to rail against undisclosed “political interests” than to face the difficulty of the situation.
The U.S. avocado industry will have to scramble to find alternative supplies. It will also face pressures on demand, since prices for the fruit are double what they were last year at this time, as the Post article notes.
Mexican avocados are likely to be sold into the domestic market at lower prices—good news for consumers, though not for growers.
We have just passed one of the two big annual events featuring avocados—the Super Bowl. The other, Cinco de Mayo, is a couple of months away. It will be interesting to see how the situation has resolved itself by that point.
