Mexico has acknowledged that the US government has
suspended all imports of Mexican avocados after a US plant safety inspector in
Mexico received a threat.

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The surprise suspension was confirmed late Saturday on
the eve of the Super Bowl, the biggest sales opportunity of the year for
Mexican avocado growers.

Avocado exports are the latest victim of the drug
cartel turf battles and extortion of avocado growers in the western state of
Michoacan, the only state in Mexico fully authorized to export to the US
market.

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The US government suspended all imports of Mexican
avocados “until further notice” after a US plant safety inspector in Mexico
received a threatening message, Mexico’s Agriculture Department said in a
statement.

“U.S. health authorities … made the decision after
one of their officials, who was carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacan,
received a threatening message on his official cellphone,” the department
wrote.

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The import ban came on the day that the Mexican
avocado growers and packers association unveiled its Super Bowl ad for this
year. Mexican exporters have taken out the pricey ads for almost a decade in a
bid to associate guacamole as a Super Bowl tradition.

This year’s ad shows Julius Caesar and a rough bunch
of gladiator fans outside what appears to be the Colosseum, soothing their
apparently violent differences by enjoying guacamole and avocados.

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The association did not immediately respond to a
request for comment on the ban, which hits an industry with almost $3 billion
in annual exports. However, avocados for this year’s Super Bowl had already
been exported in the weeks prior to the event.

Because the United States also grows avocados, US
inspectors work in Mexico to ensure exported avocados don’t carry diseases that
could hurt US crops.

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It was only in 1997 that the US lifted a ban on
Mexican avocados that had been in place since 1914 to prevent a range of
weevils, scabs and pests from entering US orchards.

The inspectors work for the US Department of
Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services.

It is not the first time that the violence in
Michoacan — where the Jalisco cartel is fighting turf wars against a collection
of local gangs known as the United Cartels — has threatened avocados, the
state’s most lucrative crop.

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After a previous incident in 2019, the USDA had warned
about the possible consequences of attacking or threatening US inspectors.

In August 2019, a US Department of Agriculture team of
inspectors was “directly threatened” in Ziracuaretiro, a town just west of
Uruapan. While the agency didn’t specify what happened, local authorities say a
gang robbed the truck the inspectors were traveling in at gunpoint.

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The USDA wrote in a letter at the time that, “For
future situations that result in a security breach, or demonstrate an imminent
physical threat to the well-being of APHIS personnel, we will immediately
suspend program activities.”

Many avocado growers in Michoacan say drug gangs
threaten them or their family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay
protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per acre.

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On September 30, 2020, a Mexican employee of APHIS was
killed near the northern border city of Tijuana.

Mexican prosecutors said Edgar Flores Santos was
killed by drug traffickers who may have mistaken him for a policeman and a
suspect was arrested. The U.S. State Department said investigations “concluded
this unfortunate incident was a case of Mr. Flores being in the wrong place at
the wrong time.”

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The avocado ban was just the latest threat to Mexico’s
export trade stemming from the government’s inability to rein in illegal
activities.