The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Mexican Cartels Are Double-Dipping in the Guacamole || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

*This video was recorded during my backpacking trip through Yosemite in the end of July. Unless you want to start buying your guacamole in dime bags, the US better start looking for some new avocado "dealers". Yes, we're talking about the cartels’ involvement in the avocado supply chains in Mexico. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-mexican-cartels-are-double-dipping-in-the-guacamole

Hey, everybody. Welcome to my favorite new party pat on Smedberg Lake in Yosemite National Park, right alongside the Pacific Coast Trail for the people who actually have to follow the trail. Anywho, figure now would be a great time to talk about the geopolitics of everyone's favorite party-favor guacamole. We're having a problem with avocados. It seems that the Mexican cartels are starting to run protection rackets. It's worse than it sounds. there are two groups that are doing most of the work and inhibiting production

the first one of the Holisco New Generation Cartel who if you remember from previous works are well there's some bad characters their leader is a guy by the name of Almencho who basically believes that the first thing any cartel that's self-respecting should do is go into town

walk right into the police office in broad daylight and kill a few people as a result this violence first approach doesn't make it very easy for someone to rely with them, but it does make everybody pretty scared of them. And the growers of avocados have had to form self-protection forces in an attempt to fend them off.

The second group is, let's see if I can get this name right, Le Nueva Samilia Mitochokan, the new Mitochon family. Mchokin is the state where most of the avocados in Mexico come from. Anyway, they are a relatively new arrival, but they are definitely allied with the Sinaloa cartel, who are the primary competitors to Holisco New Generation nationally. The deciding factor about the Sinaloa Alliance is significantly different. It's not that they're any less violent.

They just use violence as a means to an ends rather than just as an ends to themselves. As a result, they have a real fondness for going out and diversifying their operations, basically trying to get into anything that allows them to launder money and agriculture, especially things that are shipped in raw form with the United States like avocados, fits the bill. So you've basically got a group that's hyperviolent and is just looking for cash versus a group that is a little bit more selective with their violence, the nicest mass murderers and drug runners you could ever meet.

But they prefer a more corporatist approach that is more, what's the word I'm looking for, corrosive to the economy. And these are the two choices that the locals have to deal with. or go the self-protection forces. Anyway, you should not expect this to get better anytime soon. In fact, you should expect it to get worse. You can make the argument that a few years ago, Americans had the opportunity to quit cocaine and destroy the cartels,

but now that they've diversified into really any sort of illegal operations, especially if it's cash heavy, it's probably too late for that. I mean, don't get me wrong, you should still not take cocaine. That's at least half of their revenues. But we're now in a situation where something like a 10th to 15th percent of the tequila lia is in Mexico are paying protection money to one of the cartels. The biggest thing I can underline here is that while I've mentioned the two big alliances, remember La Familia, there are a lot of local cartels now that are part of these broad umbrellas. And because of that, we now have local groups doing shakedowns of everyone and everything for everything. and because of that, it is probably to start looking to North Carolina for your avocados,

which definitely means you're not going to be getting them all year round. You don't travel well. I don't have any here.