Mexico Archive

In mid-July, Mexican authorities captured Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, leader of the Zetas, a major Mexican drug trafficking organization known for its brutality. In an email interview, Brian Phillips, research professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City whose research focuses on subnational political violence, discussed Mexico’s strategy of capturing or killing the leaders of drug organizations. WPR: What is the rationale behind Mexico’s kingpin strategy? Brian Phillips: Mexico focuses on arresting “kingpins,” high-level members of drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs), because it is trying to reduce the power and violence associated with these groups. The […]

A reform push in Mexico that many have termed historic could get epic this fall. That’s when President Enrique Pena Nieto will introduce plans to reform the oil and gas sector and overhaul the country’s tax system. There’s a broad consensus among economists that Mexico’s growth and long-term vitality rely on the passage of these plans, interlinked because oil revenues constitute a substantial part—around one-third—of the federal budget. And there’s a general acknowledgment across much of the Mexican political spectrum that Pemex, the state-owned oil company, is in dire need of reform. Now in its 75th year, the company’s reputation […]

The first major development in Mexico’s fight against drug organizations under the Enrique Pena Nieto administration came early yesterday morning when Mexican marines arrested Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, known as Z-40, the head of the ultraviolent Zetas organization. While lauding the arrest, analysts are largely united in the assessment that Z-40’s arrest will result in more violence in the near term, as the struggle to fill the power vacuum left by the arrest unfolds. The arrest also throws into relief the issue of the so-called kingpin strategy of targeting top leaders of Mexico’s drug organizations, which the Pena Nieto administration […]