MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico has acknowledged that the United States government suspended all imports of Mexican avocados after a U.S. health inspector at a Mexican facility received a threat.
The surprise halt was confirmed Saturday night on the eve of the Super Bowl, the biggest sales opportunity of the year for Mexican avocado growers, though it won’t affect consumption on game day because shipments had already been sent.
Avocado exports have become the latest casualty in the turf wars among drug cartels and the extortion of avocado producers in the western state of Michoacán, the only Mexican state fully authorized to export to the U.S. market.
The U.S. government suspended all imports of Mexican avocados “until further notice” after a U.S. sanitation inspector in Mexico received a threat, the Mexican Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.
“The U.S. health authority today informed the National Service for Health, Safety and Agro-Food Quality (Senasica) that it made the decision after one of its officers, who was performing inspection duties in Uruapan, Michoacán, received a threat call to his official cell phone,” the agency wrote.
The import ban came the same day that avocado producers and the packing association unveiled their ad for this year’s Super Bowl. Mexican exporters have spent millions on advertising for nearly a decade to tie guacamole to the Super Bowl tradition.
This year’s commercial features the Roman emperor Julius Caesar and several gladiator enthusiasts outside what appears to be the Colosseum, who settle their violent differences by enjoying guacamole and avocados.
The association did not respond to a request for comment about the ban, which affects an industry whose exports amount to nearly $3 billion a year.
However, avocados for this year’s Super Bowl had been exported weeks before the game.
The American embassy wrote that “facilitating the export of Mexican avocados to the United States and ensuring the safety of our agricultural inspection personnel go hand in hand.”
“We are working with the Mexican government to ensure the safety conditions that allow our staff in Michoacán to resume operations,” the embassy said on its social media accounts.
Because the United States also grows avocados, its inspectors work in Mexico to ensure that exported avocados carry no diseases that could harm crops in the United States.
It wasn’t until 1997 that the United States lifted a ban on Mexican avocados that had stood since 1914 to prevent a range of weevils, scales and pests from entering American orchards.
Inspectors work for the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
This isn’t the first time violence in Michoacán—where the Jalisco cartel is waging territorial wars against local gangs known as Los Cárteles Unidos—has threatened avocados, the state’s most lucrative crop.
In August 2019, a USDA team was “directly threatened” in Ziracuaretiro, a town west of Uruapan. While the agency did not specify what happened, local authorities said a criminal group pistol‑drove away the truck carrying the inspectors.
At the time, the USDA stated in a letter that “for future situations that result in a security breach, or pose an imminent physical danger to APHIS personnel, we will immediately suspend program activities.”
Michoacán avocado growers say narcotics groups threaten them or family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per hectare.
On September 30, 2020, a Mexican APHIS employee was killed near the northern border city of Tijuana.
Mexican authorities said Edgar Flores Santos was killed by drug traffickers who may have thought he was an agent, and a suspect was arrested.
The U.S. State Department said investigations “determined that this unfortunate incident was a case of Mr. Flores being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The avocado ban marks the latest risk to Mexican exports amid the government’s struggle to curb illegal activity.
On Thursday, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office filed an environmental complaint against Mexico for not stopping illegal fishing to protect the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise and critically endangered.
The office said it had requested “environmental consultations” with Mexico, the first case of its kind under the guidelines of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.
Consultations are the first step in the dispute-resolution process under the trade pact that took effect in 2020. If no solution is reached, trade sanctions could ultimately be imposed.
Mexico’s government has abandoned attempts to create a fishing-free zone around the area where the last vaquitas marina are believed to live in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. Illegal nets used to catch totoaba have caused vaquitas to drown.
On Monday, the prohibition was placed on Mexican fishing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico from “entering U.S. ports, port access and services will be denied,” the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, due to years of Mexican boats illegally harvesting red snapper in U.S. Gulf waters.
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