Mexico

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa signed on Friday a revamped trade deal with Mexico as part of the EU’s efforts to expand its influence in Latin America, shortly after the Mercosur pact entered into force.

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The deal was signed at an EU–Mexico summit in Mexico, with von der Leyen and Costa joined by the country’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, amid rising geopolitical tensions and shifting global alliances following the return of US president to the White House.

The economic partnership between the two medium-sized powers reflects efforts on both sides to reduce their dependence on the US — the EU’s and Mexico’s largest trading partner—and on China, for which Mexico has become a hub for electric vehicle production.

“The EU and Mexico are committed to a close strategic partnership,” von der Leyen said, adding: “Today’s modernised Agreements set out our shared vision of the future and will deliver many benefits for both sides.”

The EU–Mexico trade deal strengthens the EU’s diversification strategy by updating a 20-year-old agreement that had already eliminated tariff barriers on bilateral trade.

Under the new deal, the EU will access new markets for products, such as agri-food (pork, dairy, cereals, fruit and pasta), pharmaceuticals and machinery.

EU tightens trade ties in Latin America

Mexico is the EU’s second-largest trading partner in Latin America and the EU is Mexico’s second-largest export market. Trade between both sides reached €86.8 billion in goods in 2025, alongside €29.7 billion in services in 2024.

The figures remain far smaller than Mexico’s trade with its neighbour, the US, which exceeded $900 billion in goods and services in 2024. But the deal comes as Mexico faces mounting pressure from a more protectionist White House.

For its part, the EU has been grappling with repeated tariff threats from Trump despite a trade deal clinched in 2025.

“At a time of growing global uncertainty, the EU and Mexico are choosing openness, partnership and ambition,” EU trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, who was also in Mexico City, said. He pointed out that more than 43,000 European companies export to Mexico, while over 11,000 EU companies operate in the country.

On agriculture, the pact will open up new markets for Mexican products such as coffee, fruit, chocolate and agave syrup.

A total of 568 European and 26 Mexican geographical indications will also be protected, alongside the opening of public procurement markets, according to the Commission.

With this new deal, the EU also wants to signal its strengthened presence in Latin America, where China has expanded its influence.

“97% of the GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean will be covered by sophisticated preferential agreements with the European Union,” a senior EU official said, adding: “There is no other region in the world that has such a dense and connected network of agreements.”

The EU has already built new trade ties with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay through the Mercosur trade agreement, which provisionally entered into force on 1 May and liberalises trade flows between the EU and those countries.

However, its signing has faced strong opposition from EU farmers, who fear unfair competition from Latin American imports, and ratification was suspended after MEPs challenged the agreement before the EU Court of Justice.

Brussels argues the Mexico agreement should avoid the backlash faced by Mercosur because sensitive agricultural imports remain capped through tariff quotas.

May 20 (UPI) — Three people are dead and nearly 20 others, mostly first responders, were hospitalized after coming into contact with an unknown substance at a central New Mexico residence on Wednesday.

New Mexico State Police said in a statement that the incident occurred around 11 a.m. MDT at a home at 306 Halon Avenue in Mountainair, located about 65 miles southeast of Albuquerque.

State police officers were assisting the Torrance County Sheriff’s office with what they believed was a suspected overdose involving an unidentified substance at the residence, where four people were found unresponsive inside, three of whom have since died.

Eighteen responders exposed to the substance then began experiencing nausea and dizziness, according to authorities, who said they, along with the sole living occupant of the residence, were transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where two first responders were listed in serious condition.

Albuquerque Fire Rescue’s technicians were deployed to the scene in Level-A hazmat suits, the highest level of protection against hazardous materials, to sample, identify and remove the unknown substance and conduct decontamination work.

Videos and photos published by Albuquerque Fire Rescue to its Facebook page show several men dressed in large orange hazmat suits coordinating their operation.

Fire officials said they had completed their operation at the residence. New Mexico State Police said they believe the substance is transmitted through contact and is not airborne.

“There is currently no threat to the public,” New Mexico State Police said.

“A secure perimeter has been established and the affected area remains limited to the residence.”

It was not clear whether authorities had identified the three people who died. The conditions of the other hospitalized first responders and the surviving occupant were also unknown, but authorities said they were being quarantined, evaluated and monitored.

MEXICO CITY — The highway from the Guadalajara city airport to downtown is newly paved and the city’s famous roundabout has gotten a $4-million facelift. The city is abuzz with renovation projects as Guadalajara prepares to host four World Cup soccer matches in June.

But there’s one thing the 3 million fans expected to flock to the city won’t see — the sites where hundreds of bodies have been found in clandestine graves dug by Mexico’s notorious New Generation Jalisco Cartel. Scores were discovered on the main route leading to Akron Stadium, where the games will be played.

One set of remains was that of a 17-year-old high school student who had gone out to sell his motorcycle to help his unemployed uncle. He disappeared. When his uncle began searching, he disappeared as well. At another site, the bones of a 34-year-old cellphone repairman were found. He was a father of two who’d simply ventured out to shop for used tennis shoes.

According to statistics compiled by the state of Jalisco, between 2018 and March of this year, 1,907 bodies were found in Guadalajara and surrounding cities.

The arrival of the World Cup is an opportunity for Mexico’s second-largest city to shine on the international stage, and the Jalisco state government launched an upbeat campaign highlighting the municipality where games will be played: “Zapopan, the heart of soccer,” the slogan goes.

Families searching for their loved ones sarcastically responded with, “Zapopan, the heart of clandestine graves.”

An aerial view of La Minerva roundabout fountain in Guadalajara, Mexico, taken on June 27, 2025.

(Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images)

Since January of 2025 alone, search groups and authorities have discovered 58 graves with 226 sets of remains inside city limits. Five graves were located within three miles of Akron Stadium.

Three graves with 15 bodies were found within a mile of the city’s iconic La Minerva roundabout, a huge traffic circle featuring fountains, greenery and a towering statue of the Roman goddess Minerva. Others were found not far from Chapultepec Street, a popular tourist destination.

Liliana Meza, mother of Carlos Maximiliano Romero Meza, who disappeared on Oct. 22, 2020, poses with a search card at the Glorieta de las Personas Desaparecidas in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Friday, May 15, 2026. Founders of the Luz de Esperanza Desaparecidos Jalisco collective created the cards, inspired by World Cup soccer stickers, to draw attention to missing persons cases ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Jalisco.

(Alejandra Leyva/For The Times)

Though tourists and tourist sites are rarely touched by cartel violence in Mexico, critics say the graves are an embarrassment for state and city administrators.

Amid all the cleanup, little official attention has gone to the growing number of clandestine graves that groups of persistent, family-funded search teams have found in recent months.

Large machinery and backhoes are working nonstop across the city ahead of the games, said Jaime Aguilar, a spokesperson for the group Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, which finds an average of two graves a month. “But when we ask for a backhoe to help in our searches, there is never one available,” he said.

Over the years, secret graves have been discovered in rural areas, at industrial sites, alongside roads, inside buildings and even in the heart of Guadalajara. The Jalisco state government tracks grave discoveries, but an analysis by The Times and Puente News Collaborative shows many have been concentrated in the Guadalajara area.

Flyers with photographs and identifying information about missing persons, posted by search collectives, have become a common sight along the main streets of the city’s historic center, as seen here on Friday, May 15, 2026.

(Alejandra Leyva/For The Times)

Earlier this year, authorities found a blood-soaked safe house a mile from Akron Stadium where cartel enemies were tortured. One person was found buried there. Within a 10-mile radius, nearly 100 sets of remains were found in 500 trash bags buried in shallow graves.

The graves, and the potential discovery of more, worried Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. She feared that FIFA, the international soccer association in charge of the games, might move the Mexico games to the United States or Canada, the other countries co-hosting the games, because of the violence, said one Mexican official familiar with planning for the tournament.

That fear burst into the open in February, when Mexican special forces killed Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the hyper-violent New Generation Jalisco Cartel. Law enforcement officials said Guadalajara is a stronghold for the criminal group.

Cartel members responded to El Mencho’s death by setting fire to cars and buses and blocking major exits from Guadalajara. The city was briefly paralyzed. Gunmen burned 80 convenience stores and a host of pharmacies, flexing their power in the city.

In the days after the violence, FIFA officials met with the Mexican government to review security for the Guadalajara matches. Sheinbaum laid out a plan to send 100,000 security personnel, including Army soldiers and police officers, to stadiums in Guadalajara and the country’s two other host cities, Mexico City and Monterrey. FIFA determined it would not change the World Cup venues.

U.S. law enforcement has been advising Mexico on counter-terrorism methods, including training in repelling drone bombs, a weapon increasingly used by cartels to terrorize communities, attack adversaries and target military convoys. U.S. special forces have been training Mexican military teams to repel attacks at stadiums.

Fliers with photographs and identifying information about missing persons are displayed throughout Guadalajara’s historic center alongside traditional city scenes and World Cup-related imagery.

(Alejandra Leyva / For The Times)

The Mexican government had already witnessed the Jalisco cartel’s proclivity for brazen killing. In December, some four miles from Akron Stadium, gunmen fired more than 3,000 bullets in broad daylight into the car of a director of a produce distribution center. The gun battle between his security guards and the cartel took place just a few blocks from a police station. It took officers nearly a half hour to arrive at the scene.

In recent years, Jalisco state has become a cartel killing ground, security experts say. Some graves discovered in the Guadalajara area contained a single body, some more than 40. A few had 95 or more.

In 2023, the remains of nine teenagers, chopped up and stuffed in trash bags, were found in a canyon in Zapopan. They had worked for a Jalisco cartel call center where telemarketers scammed Americans of millions of dollars in a time-share scheme. The teenagers are believed to have upset their employer.

Traffickers recruit young people, including minors, to serve as foot soldiers in their bloody quest to control drug-trafficking routes across Mexico. Some of those teenagers were lured by ads promising good-paying jobs, only to discover they were being funneled to a Jalisco cartel training camp an hour outside Guadalajara. There, as a test, Mexican security officials said, recruits were forced to kill fellow recruits.

Plaza Liberacion, the city’s main public square, with flyers with photographs and identifying information about missing persons, on Friday.

(Alejandra Leyva/For The Times)

The cartel has recruited more than 45,000 minors across Mexico in recent years, said one Jalisco state representative.

While some of Guadalajara’s upscale neighborhoods have escaped the violence, families across the metropolitan area have seen hundreds of children disappear, some to reappear, dead, on cartel battlefields across Jalisco and in the states of Sinaloa and Michoacán, searchers said.

The Jalisco state government lists more than 16,000 reports of missing people — the most of any Mexican state. Nationwide more than 130,000 people are reported missing.

Despite the preparations and the buzz among the nation’s vast population of soccer fans, World Cup fever has not caught on among families of the disappeared and the search teams that each week fan out across Guadalajara, looking for new graves.

Natalia Leticia García’s son disappeared in 2017. She began her own search and launched a group to help find other victims. Eight years later, García’s group has located 26 graves. Some finds have been bags full of severed heads, others holding just arms. It is a cartel tactic, she said, to make it harder to piece together remains.

“It is cruel,” García said. Her son, César Ulises Quintero García, remains missing.

Fisher is a special correspondent. This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative, a bilingual nonprofit newsroom that covers stories from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border.

The holidaymaker revealed how he enjoyed a week-long holiday at a budget price

A social media user has wowed travel fans after sharing how much he spent on a week’s holiday in Mexico. The holidaymaker explained his bargain travel hack in a TikTok post shared under the username @Byseyi.

In the viral video, Byseyi revealed he spent £360 per person on a last-minute holiday to Mexico. He said: “So this is one travel tip that I don’t really hear that many people talk about. And this is actually how me and my wife travelled to Mexico for a week for around £360 per person, and that’s flights and accommodation.”

The TikTok creator claims: “So if you’re able to travel last-minute, go and look at TUI’s last-minute flight deals on the flight section of their website. Because what happens is they’re trying to get rid of some of these last-minute flights and not have empty seats going. So we ended up booking a flight for two people to go to Cancun, Mexico, for £538 for both of us.

“Managed to find some good accommodation in Tulum that was cheap for £185. And even right now, if you go on the website, you’ll see a flight to the Dominican Republic for £384 if you’re able to travel in the month of May.

“So it’s really just for those people, maybe you had a holiday that got cancelled and you’re trying to plan a new thing, or you have the flexibility to just travel last minute. So it doesn’t apply to everyone, but for those that it can work for, you can get something good for cheap.”

The video gained over 115k views and 14k likes on TikTok. Replying to the video, a viewer said: “Thanks for reminding me being fully remote is a win.” A second comment read: “A digital nomads dream lol …let me go check out TUI.” A third social media user wrote: “Yep! TUI got me to Aruba for £196 return, directttt! best!”

Someone else shared: “I always like these deals but they don’t work for people who like to explore more than one city in a country. But I think it’s great when you are simply looking for anywhere to go to.”

Another response said: “How close to the departure date did you book?” The travel lover replied: “Booked on the 23rd of Feb, flew out 3rd of March.”

Passengers looking for last-minute flights can browse deals on TUI’s website, where there’s a section dedicated to cheap flights. Customers can filter their search by departure date, with options ranging from within seven days to three months. Alternatively, customers planning further ahead can refine their search by month.

Chris Logan, Commercial Director at TUI UK and Ireland, said: “If you’ve got a bit of flexibility, our last-minute flight deals can be a brilliant way to grab a great-value getaway. Flying from over 20 airports across the UK, making it easy to pick a date, pack a bag and set off from a nearby airport. There’s a great choice of destinations on offer too – from European favourites like Spain and Greece, to long-haul escapes across the Caribbean, including Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, as well as Florida.

“These direct flights include 10kg of hand luggage as standard, with the option to add more, upgrade for extra space or enjoy a more premium travel experience. It’s always worth checking back – you might find something that gets you away sooner than you think.”