Mexico

Some do. Some don't.

Poised to miss a key deadline for a renegotiated NAFTA, the White House threatens to leave Canada in the cold.

Ways and Means members suggest a trade deal with Mexico might not be legal under fast-track authority.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The president threatened to leave Canada behind in renegotiating NAFTA. But lawmakers doubt he’s allowed to do that.

Hardly an overhaul, but it could have been much worse.

The World Cup starts on Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EST (the first game will be broadcast on Fox) and the United States isn’t in it. Boo-hoo. We’ve had a good run: America is one of just thirteen teams to have qualified for six of the last seven tournaments. If we weren’t in the unusually…

Trading partners in Mexico and Europe express disappointment, promise tariffs in response.

Between McAllen and Brownsville, only a river separates the U.S. from a war zone.

Big Bend National Park is a tough sell because there isn't any one scene or location that's especially notable or so beautiful that it deserves to be your desktop background. But the park does have an overall effect on people that keeps them coming back year after year. I said in the previous entry…

President Trump traveled to Ohio Thursday to give what was supposed to be a speech touting his administration's infrastructure plan, as the White House attempts this week to refocus on infrastructure for the umpteenth time since Trump's inauguration. But that effort ran aground Thursday for the…

"Are you a missionary?" one of my fellow passengers asked. It was a pretty smart bet. We were bumping along on a bus ride south from Ciudad Juarez, and I was headed to Nueva Casas Grandes, a tiny town that looks big in comparison to its neighbors Colonia Juarez and Colonia Dublan, the last two…

El Paso, Texas

President Trump signed a controversial order implementing heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminum Thursday, calling the action “a matter of necessity for our security” and saying it would help to revitalize fading American industry.

Roberta Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico announced Thursday that she will resign from her position sometime in May, according to the New York Times.

For recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, a sigh of relief: The Supreme Court on Monday effectively upheld a lower court’s ruling that the White House cannot end DACA, which provides legal status to people brought to America illegally as children, until challenges to the…

We ended up staying in Ciudad Juárez a third night in order to attend a political rally for presidential candidate Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez, better known as “Marichuy.” The University of Ciudad Juarez hosted the event in a large lecture hall. There was standing room only for the students…

We arrived in Janos late in the afternoon and parted ways with Sanchez, the truck driver who gave us a lift, after a quick dinner of enchiladas and steak. As the sun was setting we biked a few miles outside of town to a nature preserve, called Janos Biosphere Natural Reserve, where a group of…

Yesterday we biked from Cananea to Agua Prieta. The hospitality we’ve been shown throughout the trip has been legendary, but our connection in Agua Prieta beats all. Remember the stranger we met in the gas station in Cananea who escorted us into town? His name was Luis Ramirez and he connected us…

Northern Mexico is everything Cormac McCarthy promised it would be. The landscape has taken a Western turn ever since we left the border town, Nogales. On two-lane roads we passed rolling fields of blonde grass and gnarled black trees. The asphalt frequently gave way to dirt and rocks, leaving us…

We're in Nogales, Mexico, a large border city south of Tucson, Arizona. Jon crossed onto our side of the border last night with a new bike. The band is back together again, and the recent Kia Sorento unpleasantness has been resolved.

March 23, 1994—Luis Donaldo Colosio, the leading candidate in Mexico's upcoming presidential election, is about to deliver a speech at a rally in Tijuana. It is assumed he will easily win. Loud music is playing. Colosio is being jostled forward by the crowd. They are chanting his name, excited to…

Last night we slept in the desert. We dug a pit in the sand for a fire, and desecrated the surrounding brush for wood. This was probably against the rules, it being a national park and all, and we each feel terribly guilty. But the hot dogs were delicious, wrapped in tortillas with refried beans…

The plan was to leave Puerto Penasco today and bike to Sonoyta, a border town 60 miles north. The road in between is smooth, lightly traveled, and has a generous shoulder on both sides. The only problem was the wind, which pushed directly against us and picked up speed the further we pedaled on the…

All of the different states in Mexico have their own identity, even more so than our United States, I'm told. Today was our first full day of biking in the state of Sonora, and it's a drastic change from Baja, California. Sonora is rural, and today we passed endless fields of cotton, alfalfa, and…

Last night we joined two of Davi's friends for beers at a local brewery. Both women are now full-time residents of Mexicali, but living in the border town for the sake of their engineering careers in the United States. Special SENTRI passes allow them to commute back and forth every day. We woke up…

We spent an unexpectedly luxurious night in Bosques del Condor, a rustic campground in La Rumorosa (translation: "the one who tells rumors," because of the wind that blows and whispers through the canyon). When the sun goes down here the temperature plunges immediately, and we were relieved to find…

Before biking into Tijuana, we took a tour of the San Ysidro border crossing, the busiest land crossing in the world. Two agents at Customs and Border Protection generously came into work early to show us what they do day to day. At 7 a.m. the place was already a parking lot, packed with traffic…

A question of grammar is at the center of President Donald Trump’s latest battle with the media.

Trade experts, lawmakers, and investors panicked across the board Wednesday night after Reuters reported Canadian officials were increasingly convinced President Donald Trump is planning to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The representatives from Canada and Mexico who came to Washington on Wednesday to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement were greeted by U.S. officials taking a hard line on negotiations.

Donald Trump’s base swooned when he roared on the campaign trail that he would build a wall on the Mexican border, and that Mexico would pay for it.

The left's favorite scribbler on spiritual subjects, Reza Aslan, caused a small fuss recently with the first episode of his new CNN religion series: He participated in a little ritual cannibalism. But eating human brains isn't the only zombie-like behavior by the Iranian-American author: There is…

The left’s favorite scribbler on spiritual subjects, Reza Aslan, caused a small fuss recently with the first episode of his new CNN religion series: He participated in a little ritual cannibalism. But eating human brains isn't the only zombie-like behavior by the Iranian-American author: There is…

One hundred years ago, a crisis in Mexican-American relations changed the course of history. Front pages blared the news that would precipitate U.S. entry into World War I: the publication of the legendary Zimmermann Telegram. The American people—up to then decidedly isolationist—read the shocking…

In the final week of the Obama administration, the outgoing president filed a complaint at the World Trade Organization (WTO) accusing China of unfair trade practices. This wasn't a big surprise: Obama averaged one complaint against China every six months throughout his presidency. Indeed, Donald…

We are two Americans with different family histories whose paths converged when we got involved with one of the nation's largest Hispanic charter school operators. At the peak of our efforts a couple of years ago, the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) Charter School Network enrolled more than…

What if, instead of a wall, we were to build, along the southern border, a cargo shipping canal?

We are two Americans with different family histories whose paths converged when we got involved with one of the nation’s largest Hispanic charter school operators. At the peak of our efforts a couple of years ago, the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) Charter School Network enrolled more than…

A report in a Mexican newspaper earlier this month suggested that, as part of a mooted NAFTA re-negotiation, the Trump administration may offer to help Mexico bulk up border security along its southern frontier with Guatemala.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Mexico will somehow reimburse the United States for the building of a border wall, an apparent response to reports that he wants Congress to fund the project through the appropriations process early this year.

Reuters reports with an exclusive:

If you ever worry about the quality of news on the Internet, consider a recent story at BuzzFeed from reporter Adrian Carrasquillo. The writer notes indignantly that Donald Trump's infamous campaign comments about Mexican immigrants were not unprecedented: Speaking on a radio talk show, in 2011,…

On Tuesday, a Pew Research Center white paper found that while the number of illegal Mexican immigrants has decreased compared with other countries, the number of illegal immigrants as a whole who stay long-term has risen considerably.

Jorge Castañeda, the esteemed Mexican intellectual who served as his country's secretary of foreign affairs from 2000 to 2003, used a Wednesday appearance in Washington not only to declare that Donald Trump could easily make Mexico pay for a border wall, and to refute recent studies showing a…

Jorge Castañeda, who served as Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs from 2000 to 2003, and who is currently a professor at New York University, appeared at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Wednesday. Castañeda, who cuts a debonair, cosmopolitan figure, exploded a couple of bits of received…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with literary editor Philip Terzian on Donald Trump's trip to Mexico and previous visits by U.S. political leaders.

"Trump just failed his first foreign policy test," tweeted Hillary Clinton after Donald Trump returned from his meeting with the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Actually, the opposite is true: Trump was smart to accept Peña Nieto's invitation to Mexico City, and smarter still to comport…

Donald Trump went to Mexico Wednesday on a risky, last-minute trip in advance of his big policy speech on immigration. He had two goals: to provide a dramatic, newsy preview of his immigration policy speech on Wednesday night, and to look presidential.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Donald Trump's trip south of the border to meet with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.

Donald Trump will be traveling to Mexico Wednesday to meet with that country's president. The meeting will occur just hours before Trump plans to give a speech on immigration in Phoenix. The Republican presidential nominee confirmed the trip, first reported by the Washington Post, in a tweet…

Mexico has a serious obesity problem, with seventy percent of adults and thirty percent of children overweight or obese. Indeed, Mexico recently surpassed the United States to become the fattest major country in the world. We don't win anymore!

Last week, the White House quietly, and unnoticed by any news organization, released the 2015 heroin production estimate for Mexico—it was another huge spike upward to an historic level. The amount of pure heroin produced in Mexico rose to 70 metric tons in 2015, a 67-percent increase over 2014,…

Cancun

Concerns over immigration from our neighbors to the south have loomed large this primary season, with the GOP candidates in agreement regarding the dangerous exports of one country in particular: Mexico. However, before we erect more walls between us and our third largest trading partner, it…

Bill Kristol appeared with Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV Tuesday to discuss Donald Trump's influence on the Republican presidential field. The boss argued that despite Trump's inappropriate comments about illegal immigrants, Republicans should not be so quick to disregard the issues the real-estate…

With Washington quibbling over the finer points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), many commentators are arguing that lessons of past trade deals, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), are useful augers for what to…

Mexican president Peña Nieto called President Obama's executive amnesty "very intelligent" and "an act of justice” in comments today in the Oval Office. He made the comments in Spanish.

The fiesta is over. Mexico, a remarkably important nation of some 120 million people—indeed, the world’s fifteenth largest economy—is descending into crisis. Students have been slaughtered en masse with the complicity of a corrupt police force. The country’s young president and his finance minster…

Call it a tale of two countries. Two would-be Latin American powerhouses, both with populations surpassing 100 million people – and both with weak presidents who are beset by corruption problems. Both, in other words, are severely underperforming countries, whose chronic inability to live up to…

Director of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson will head for the Texas-Mexico border town of McAllen, Texas Friday in the wake of President Obama's announcement regarding his immigration executive order. Johnson will be meeting with DHS employees for "workforce engagements," presumably to discuss and/or…

The following is a transcript of a conversation in the Oval Office passed to me simultaneously by the German, French, and British intelligence services, along with copies of their governments' complaints about the immorality of American spying on its allies.

The same day President Obama held a press conference about the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of State John Kerry faced the press in Mexico at a joint appearance with Mexican foreign secretary Jose Antonio Meade. Kerry was in the country to discuss trade, economic…

The EPA awarded $461,368 in grants this week for various environmental projects along the U.S.-Mexico border.  About half of the funds went to projects in Calexico, CA and Phoenix, AZ, but the remaining $230,000 went to two cities on the Mexican side of the border, Nogales and Ensenada.  The…

During his trip to Mexico and Costa Rica last week, President Obama tried to highlight the positive and downplay the negative. Thus, he spoke at length about the growth of trade, commerce, and economic partnerships, arguing that security issues should not be allowed to dominate all discussions of…

In his weekly address filmed this time in Mexico City, President Obama touted his efforts to reform the immigration system. He made sure to say the "bill is a compromise," and included this gaffe, "It would provide a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million individuals who are already in…

In Mexico, President Obama said that Obamacare passed after a "little bit of a fuss." The president made the statement while speaking at a press conference in support of over-the-counter Plan B for women as young as 15:

President Obama took a moment yesterday in Mexico to "editorialize just for a second about gun control," as he said at a joint press conference with his Mexican counterpart.

As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at…

The day after his inauguration on December 1, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto joined with leaders of the country’s two main opposition parties to sign the “Pact for Mexico,” a joint pledge to pursue dozens of domestic reforms in areas such as education, telecommunications, and energy. At the…

When Mexican president Felipe Calderón leaves office on December 1, his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit a country with rampant corruption and high levels of drug-related violence. Of course, when Calderón entered the presidency six years ago, he himself inherited a country with rampant…

The president-elect of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, praised President Barack Obama's immigration plan in a meeting today at the White House. 

At tonight’s presidential debate on foreign policy, we can expect questions related to the civil war in Syria, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and the broader war on terrorism, including the September 11 Benghazi attack. But I hope that debate moderator Bob Schieffer also asks President Obama and…

We are now less than two weeks away from an election that could either save or destroy what remains of Venezuelan democracy.

Last month in London, Mexico’s Olympic soccer team won gold by defeating its Brazilian counterpart, 2-1. The victory gave Mexico its first-ever trophy in a major international soccer tournament (apart from the 1999 Confederations Cup), and it proved that the soccer gap between Latin America’s two…

Last week, the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report and held hearings on the giant British-based HSBC bank. HSBC Holdings was ranked as the sixth-largest public company in the world by Forbes in 2011, with assets of $2.5…

Assuming the polls are correct, Mexico’s notorious Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will cruise to victory in Sunday’s presidential election and also win at least one chamber of the national legislature. Will this mean a return to the bad old days of authoritarian politics and corrupt deals…

At a bilateral meeting in Los Cabos, Mexican president Felipe Calderón thanked President Obama for his Friday announcement not to prosecute young illegal immigrants:

Vice President Joe Biden seemed this morning to defer to his grandfather's past advice not to deliver a toast with water--before rejecting it. From this morning's pool report:

Iran experts continue to express surprise and confusion that Iran’s Quds Force could be a part of such an amateurish and bungled operation.

ABC News points to a new Mitt Romney ad that focuses on former Mexican president Vicente Fox's praise for Texas's policy of providing in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants who attend state universities and colleges.

Of course he does: "Obama Seeks to Win Back Wall St. Cash"