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      How Reliant Is the U.S. on Avocados From Mexico?

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      A temporary halt on inspections by U.S.D.A. workers in Mexico on safety concerns highlighted how dependent the United States had become on one region for supplies of the popular fruit.Americans have a growing appetite for avocados, and a single state in Mexico supplies nearly all of the fruit eaten in the United States.This reliance is highlighted when imports are disrupted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently suspended inspections of avocados and mangoes set to be shipped from Mexico, citing security issues for agency workers stationed in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico where criminal groups have sought to infiltrate the thriving avocado industry.The U.S. ambassador to Mexico said in late June that inspections would “gradually” resume, and visited Michoacán last week to meet with state and federal authorities.Here’s what to know about the avocado trade between the United States and Mexico.Where does the U.S. get its avocados from?The average American consumes more than eight pounds of avocados per year, roughly triple the amount in the early 2000s, according to the U.S.D.A.Most of that rise in demand has been met by imports. The United States imported a record 2.8 billion pounds of avocados in 2023, accounting for about 90 percent of the fruit supply, up from 40 percent two decades ago. A vast majority of U.S. avocado imports come from Mexico, which has become the world’s top producer, largely in response to the pull of rising demand from U.S. consumers. Most of Mexico’s avocado production is centered in Michoacán.California produces about 90 percent of the avocados grown in the United States. But irregular weather patterns linked to climate change, including droughts and wildfires, have put a strain on the state’s farms in recent years, further feeding a reliance on imports.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Orders Biden Administration to Resume Permits for Gas Exports

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      President Biden had paused new natural gas export terminals to assess their effects on the climate, economy and national security. A federal judge disagreed.A federal judge on Monday ordered the Biden administration to resume issuing permits for new liquefied natural gas export facilities after the government had paused that process in January to analyze how those exports affect climate change, the economy and national security.The decision, from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, comes in response to a lawsuit from 16 Republican state attorneys general, who argued that the pause amounted to a ban that harmed their states’ economies. Many of those states, including Louisiana, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming, produce significant amounts of natural gas.The judge, James D. Cain Jr., who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, wrote in his decision that the states had demonstrated that they had lost jobs, royalties and taxes that would have flowed had permits for gas exports continued.Texas, for example, projected that it would lose $259.8 million in tax revenues associated with natural gas production over five years as a result of the pause of permitting.Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said that she expects that the analysis of L.N.G. exports, which is being conducted by her agency, would be completed late this year.But Judge Cain agreed with the attorneys general that the states were being harmed.“The Court finds that the lost or delayed revenues tied to natural gas production is a concrete and imminent injury that supports standing,” Judge Cain wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Germany Hopes to Head Off a Trade War With China

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      As the European Union moves to impose tariffs on Chinese cars, Germany, with an auto industry deeply enmeshed with China, is stuck in the middle.With billions of dollars in trade between China and the European Union at stake, Germany’s second-highest cabinet official called on Saturday for the two sides to engage in talks to try to resolve an escalating dispute over tariffs.Robert Habeck, who is Germany’s vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate, said that he expected talks to begin soon between China and European officials. He expressed a hope that tariffs could be avoided.Still, he added that tariffs could be justified if the commission’s concerns about China’s subsidies for its electric car industry were not resolved.This month, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, proposed tariffs of up to 38 percent on electric cars from China, on top of an existing 10 percent tariff on imported cars. The commission said it found that China’s electric car sector was heavily subsidized by the government and state-controlled banking system.“These tariffs are not punitive,” Mr. Habeck said, adding that the tariffs are intended to offset subsidies that violate World Trade Organization rules.But Chinese officials strongly criticized the European tariffs after meeting with him. Wang Wentao, the commerce minister, described them as protectionist and called on Germany to help end them. “It is hoped that Germany will play an active role in the E.U. and promote the E.U. and China to move toward each other,” the ministry said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S.D.A. Suspends Avocado Inspections in Mexico, Citing Security Concerns

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      The move, prompted by fears for agency workers’ safety, could eventually affect U.S. avocado supplies if the inspections are not resumed.Security concerns for agency workers have led the United States Agriculture Department to suspend its inspections of avocados and mangos imported from Mexico “until further notice,” the U.S.D.A. said on Monday.Produce already cleared for export will not be affected by the decision, but avocado supplies in the United States, which mostly come from the Mexican state of Michoacán, could eventually be affected if the inspections are not resumed. The inspections “will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place,” a U.S.D.A. spokesman said in an email. The agency did not say what had prompted the security concerns. But Mexican news outlets recently reported that two U.S.D.A. inspectors had been illegally detained at a checkpoint run by community members. In Michoacán, which stretches from the mountains west of Mexico City to the Pacific Ocean, some Indigenous communities have set up security patrols to defend themselves against criminal groups.The United States Embassy in Mexico confirmed on Monday that the inspectors were no longer in detention.“The interruption of avocado exports from Michoacán was due to an incident unrelated to the avocado industry,” Julio Sahagún Calderón, the president of Mexico’s association of avocado producers and packers, known as APEAM, said in a statement. He added that the group was working “intensively” with Mexican and U.S. authorities to resume the inspection of avocados from Michoacán.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Expands Sanctions on Russia as G7 Leaders Gather

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      The Biden administration is taking new measures aimed at stopping China from helping the Kremlin sustain its war effort against Ukraine. U.S. officials hope European nations will take similar steps.The Biden administration announced a series of new financial sanctions Wednesday aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are behind a broad effort to rebuild and modernize Russia’s military during its war with Ukraine.The actions were announced just as President Biden was leaving the country for a meeting in Italy of the Group of 7 industrialized economies, where a renewed effort to degrade the Russian economy will be at the top of his agenda.The effort has grown far more complicated in the past six or eight months after China, which previously had sat largely on the sidelines, has stepped up its shipments of microchips, optical systems for drones and components for advanced weaponry, U.S. officials said. But so far Beijing appears to have heeded Mr. Biden’s warning against shipping weapons to Russia, even as the United States and NATO continue to arm Ukraine.Announcing the new sanctions, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement that “Russia’s war economy is deeply isolated from the international financial system, leaving the Kremlin’s military desperate for access to the outside world.”At the heart of the new measures is an expansion of “secondary” sanctions that give the United States the power to blacklist any bank around the world that does business with Russian financial institutions already facing sanctions. This is intended to deter smaller banks, especially in places like China, from helping Russia finance its war effort.The Treasury Department also imposed restrictions on the stock exchange in Moscow in hopes of preventing foreign investors from propping up Russian defense companies. The sanctions hit several Chinese companies that are accused of helping Russia gain access to critical military equipment such as electronics, lasers and drone components.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Adds Tariffs to Shield Struggling Solar Industry

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      American solar manufacturers are pushing for further protections for their new factories against cheaply priced imports from China.Tariffs aimed at protecting America’s solar industry from foreign competition snapped back into place on Thursday, ending a two-year pause that President Biden approved as part of his effort to jump-start solar adoption in the U.S.The tariffs, which will apply to certain solar products made by Chinese companies in Southeast Asia, kicked in at a moment of growing global concern about a surge of cheap Chinese solar products that are undercutting U.S. and European manufacturers.The Biden administration has been trying to build up America’s solar industry by offering tax credits, and companies have announced more than 30 new U.S. manufacturing investments in the past year. But U.S. solar companies say they are still struggling to survive as competitors in China and Southeast Asia flood the global market with solar panels that are being sold at prices far below what American firms need to charge to stay in business.That has forced President Biden to make an uncomfortable choice: Continue welcoming inexpensive imports that are helping the United States transition away from fossil fuels, or block them to protect new U.S. solar factories that are benefiting from taxpayer money.The tariffs that take effect Thursday encapsulated that dilemma. The levies, which apply to certain solar products coming to the United States from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, were approved two years ago, after U.S. officials ruled that some Chinese firms were trying to dodge preexisting American tariffs on China by routing solar panels through other countries. The exact tariff rate depends on the company but could be more than 250 percent.The Chinese firms had set up factories in Southeast Asia, but Commerce Department officials said that some were not doing substantial manufacturing there. Rather, they were using sites in those countries to make minor changes to Chinese-made solar products, and then shipping them to the United States tariff-free, the ruling decided.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Greece Is Betting Big on Liquefied Natural Gas From the U.S.

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      When a withering financial crisis forced Greece to rethink its economy a decade ago, it bet big on green power​. Since then, Greece’s energy transition has been so swift “it almost feels utopian​,”​ one Greek environmentalist said.​Mountainous ridgelines and arid islands ​are covered in wind turbines and solar panels​ that ​today provide nearly two-thirds of the nation’s electricity.​​​But ​now Greece​ is deliberately pivoting back toward fossil fuels, just not to burn at home. This time it’s betting that it can become one of Europe’s main suppliers of natural gas, with much of it shipped from the United States.Both Greek and European Union subsidies have funded new pipelines that crisscross the country and connect to a brand-new import terminal that will send gas to a broad swath of Central and Eastern Europe for decades to come.The investments in Greece are part of a deluge of investments into natural gas around the world, with significant consequences for climate change. In coming years, nearly a trillion and a half dollars will go into constructing pipelines and terminals, according to Global Energy Monitor. Twenty percent of that spending is in Europe.The world’s pivot to gas speaks to a kind of hedging that increasingly defines global climate negotiations: While nations have agreed on the necessity to transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, almost all major economic powers are promoting gas as a “transition fuel.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I.M.F. Is Upbeat on China’s Growth but Questions Industrial Policy

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      Surging exports and factory investment are buoying China’s output, but the housing market faces serious troubles and industrial policies may hurt other countries.Responding to China’s surging exports and extensive investments in new factories, the International Monetary Fund made sizable increases on Wednesday in how much it believes China’s economy will grow this year and next.The I.M.F. now estimates that China will grow 5 percent this year and 4.5 percent in 2025. That is 0.4 percentage points more for each year compared with the fund’s predictions just six weeks ago.China’s gross domestic output expanded 5.2 percent last year as the economy rebounded following nearly three years of stringent pandemic policies that included numerous municipal lockdowns and mandatory quarantines. Many economists, including at the I.M.F., had anticipated that growth would falter this year because of a severe contraction of China’s housing market and a slowdown in domestic spending.Yet while property prices continued to fall and retail sales grew sluggishly, China’s economy powered ahead instead in the first three months of this year, expanding at an annual rate of about 6.6 percent because of booming exports and strong factory investments.The Chinese government is taking steps to address the housing crash, but it faces enormous challenges. Years of overbuilding have resulted in four million new but unsold apartments and, by one conservative estimate, as many as 10 million that developers have sold but not finished building.Many owners of vacant apartments now find themselves facing years of hefty mortgage payments but little chance the apartments will appreciate significantly in value.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More