U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar shakes hands with Michoacan state Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla during their joint news conference at the governor's office in Morelia, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2024. U.S. government inspections of avocados and mangoes will gradually resume in the Mexican state of Michoacan after they were suspended when two USDA employees were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, according to Salazar. (AP Photo/Armando Solis)
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar shakes hands with Michoacan state Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla during their joint news conference at the governor's office in Morelia, Mexico, Monday, June 24, 2024. U.S. government inspections of avocados and mangoes will gradually resume in the Mexican state of Michoacan after they were suspended when two USDA employees were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state, according to Salazar. (AP Photo/Armando Solis)
FLLMORELIA, Mexico (AP) — United States Amb. Ken Salazar praised Mexico’s effort protect U.S. agricultural inspectors in the conflict-ridden state of Michoacan on Monday, a week after the U.S. suspended avocado and mango inspections following an attack on inspectors.
Salazar traveled to the state, plagued by violence linked to organized crime, to meet with state and federal officials.
Earlier this month, two employees of the U.S. Agriculture Department were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Mexico's biggest avocado-producing state, prompting the U.S. government .
The diplomat told the press that last Friday that Michoacan authorites had agreed to a security plan to restart avocado exports. “We are going to continue working on this,” he added.
The U.S. said that would resume gradually.
Mexico played down the attacks, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to work with the United States to guarantee the safety of inspectors.
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.
There have also been reports of criminal groups trying to sneak avocados grown in other states that are not approved for export through U.S. inspections.
In February 2022, the U.S. government for about a week after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Michoacan received a threatening message.
Later that year, Jalisco became
The latest pause won’t stop Michoacan avocados that are already in transit from reaching the U.S.
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