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Toronto Sun
15-05-2025
- Health
- Toronto Sun
4 ways to make your house germier – in a good way
Published May 15, 2025 • 4 minute read Photo by File Photo Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. With many of us spring cleaning our homes, here's advice from experts – protect your house's microbiome for your health. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The world around us, including our homes, is full of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. Some bacteria and viruses are bad for our health, but the vast majority of these microbes are harmless or actually beneficial, said Jack Gilbert, a pediatrics professor at the University of California at San Diego. The microorganisms in our homes, where we spend a large amount of time, can play an important role in our health, Gilbert said. Research suggests that being exposed to a greater diversity of microbes results in a better-functioning immune system and lower rates of asthma or allergies. We still don't understand much about the microbiome in homes, Gilbert said, but there is one emerging trend: Urbanization appears to be associated with a loss of microbiome diversity in our environment and our bodies, which has probably contributed to a rise in disease, he said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But, Gilbert and other experts said, there are a few easy ways to support a more diverse microbiome in your home. Open your windows If you live in an area with good air quality, opening the windows can help diversify your home's microbiome by allowing in more microorganisms, Gilbert said. This is especially true if your home is within roughly 500 yards of diverse plants, he added. Plants and soil release microorganisms, and exposure to diverse microorganisms can help train the immune system to better regulate itself, Gilbert said. Without this type of exposure, the immune system can overreact to nonharmful allergens and organisms, which could lead to autoimmune conditions or allergies, he explained. 'What we're exposed to in the world can shape how our body reacts,' Gilbert said. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Graham Rook, emeritus professor of medical microbiology at University College London (UCL) suggested that some microbes in the natural world are like 'old friends' that evolved alongside us and benefit our health by strengthening our immune system's ability to regulate itself and avoid harmful overreactions. However, if you have allergies to spring pollen, allergists recommend keeping your windows closed to avoid exacerbating your symptoms. Keep houseplants Studies suggest that living in urban settings can reduce microbiome diversity in our homes and hinder the development of a varied microbiome in our bodies. 'In urban areas, there is a lot of asphalt or concrete and we don't have as much connection to the soil or plants, so we don't get as much microbial exposure,' said Juulia Manninen, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki who focuses on microbial diversity in urban environments. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But interacting with plants increases exposure to beneficial microbes, which are often limited in indoor and urban environments, she said. For example, one study from the Nature-Based Solutions Research Group at the University of Helsinki and the Natural Resources Institute in Finland found that people who worked in offices with vegetated 'green walls' (vertical structures with plants growing on them) had increased levels of anti-inflammatory proteins in their blood than workers who did not get this intervention. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Similarly, another study found that adults living in urban areas who did indoor gardening using microbially diverse soil had increased levels of anti-inflammatory proteins in their blood after one month compared with those who gardened using soil with lower microbial diversity. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Indoor gardening – growing, repotting, or even harvesting herbs or vegetables indoors – is one way to increase our interaction with plants, but simply being exposed to a variety of potted plants in the home would still be beneficial, Gilbert said. Clean strategically When cleaning your home, don't overuse harsh chemical disinfectants because they could kill too many beneficial microorganisms, said Erica M. Hartmann, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. Instead, when cleaning, ask yourself, 'What problem do I want to solve?' Focus on disinfecting areas where you know there may be harmful microorganisms, such as the kitchen countertop, where bacteria such as E. coli could spread from handling raw meat, or the bathroom, where potentially harmful molds could grow, she said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. When cleaning with chemical disinfectants, wear a mask and open a window to avoid breathing in chemicals, which could be harmful to your health, Hartmann recommended To remove debris such as dust or dirt from floors and shelves, skip disinfectants and use a damp cloth instead, she said. Consider getting a pet Exposure to animals in or around the home, such as by growing up on a farm or having a pet is associated with a reduced risk for asthma and allergies, as well as some inflammatory diseases. Dogs, in particular, have been shown to alter and diversify the microbiome inside a home. Rook and Gilbert attributed this to dogs running around outside and getting dirty, then tracking microorganisms into the house. Also, humans have a long history of living with dogs, which may mean that our immune system responds well to dog-associated microbes. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Allow your dogs to come into the house, even if they're a little dirty,' Rook suggested. If all else fails – visit nature regularly Not everyone is able to get a pet or keep houseplants in their home, and if they live in an area with significant air pollution, opening windows could do more harm than good, Gilbert said. If you face any such restriction, or even if you don't, try to get outdoors as much as possible to increase your exposure to more diverse microorganisms. 'Even spending half an hour a week in a city park interacting with grass and trees will have health benefits,' Gilbert said. For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to – a member of the Postmedia Network. Toronto Maple Leafs Toronto Maple Leafs World Columnists Relationships
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Newsom asks Trump to work together on $7.5 billion Hollywood tax credit
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is offering to partner with the Trump administration to create a federal film tax credit program worth at least $7.5 billion to boost domestic film production, his office said late Monday. The proposal came after President Donald Trump set Hollywood on edge by calling for massive tariffs on foreign-made films to address what he described as the 'DYING' American film industry. If the proposal comes together, it would be the largest government tax initiative for the film industry in U.S. history and the first such program at the federal level, a spokesperson for Newsom's office said. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. 'America continues to be a film powerhouse, and California is all in to bring more production here,' Newsom said in a statement. He added that California is 'eager to partner with the Trump administration to further strengthen domestic production and Make America Film Again.' The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Newsom, a fierce Trump opponent, is making the request at a time when tariffs have upended the global economy and sowed uncertainty across many industries. Newsom sued the Trump administration last month to block the president's sweeping tariffs, arguing they are causing irreparable harm to California's economy. Trump's call Sunday night for 100 percent tariffs on films produced overseas, in which he described foreign films as a national security threat, puzzled insiders in the highly globalized industry as to its implications. It was not clear how such tariffs would be applied or how they might affect U.S. films shot overseas or involving production abroad, The Post reported. Andrew deWaard, an assistant professor at the University of California at San Diego who studies the relationship between culture and commerce in the film industry, said the program proposed by Newsom on Monday is 'highly unlikely' to go into effect. 'I can't imagine in such a partisan atmosphere that Trump would want to be seen subsidizing California entertainment workers just as the tariffs are starting to negatively affect U.S. factory workers, farmers, truckers, etc.,' he said in an email. 'I think Newsom is calling Trump's bluff,' he added. '… If Trump balks, which is likely, then Newsom can say he tried to be bipartisan.' Newsom's office described the proposed federal tax credit as a way to bolster American stories, create U.S. jobs and benefit the industry's behind-the-scenes workers such as set builders and electricians. The proposal would be modeled after California's Film and Television Tax Credit Program that Newsom's office said has generated more than $26 billion in economic activity and supported thousands of jobs across the state since its inception in 2009. But there is debate over the effectiveness of such film tax credits. In testimony to the state's Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee this year, Michael Thom, a professor at the University of Southern California who has researched tax incentives for film and television production, said such initiatives 'fail to stimulate enough economic activity to justify their substantial cost.' --- Video Embed Code Video: President Donald Trump said on May 4 that he wants tariffs on all foreign-made movies, saying other countries have "stolen" the American film to The Washington Post Embed code: Related Content At a Kentucky farm, star racehorses help people fight a monster: Addiction
The Verge
05-05-2025
- Business
- The Verge
RIP Skype — you were right about almost everything
'When I knew it was over was when I downloaded Skype.' All the way back in 2003, Michael Powell, then the chairman of the FCC and the United States' chief regulator of the telecom industry, told a roomful of academics and executives at the University of California at San Diego that he had seen the future of communication. 'When the inventors of Kazaa are distributing, for free, a little program that you can talk to anybody else, and the quality is fantastic and it's free, it's over. You can pretend it's not. You can fight these fights. But it is over. The world will change now inevitably.' Powell was right. The world did change, and it changed in Skype's image. Then it left Skype behind. On Monday, Microsoft shut Skype down for good, a few days short of 14 years after buying the service for $8.5 billion. Skype still had users until the bitter end, but both Microsoft and the world had more or less moved on. Microsoft has shifted all its investment to Teams, a corporate-focused app that the company swears will someday catch on with regular people. Zoom and Meet and countless other apps do video chat perfectly well. WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and dozens of other messaging services offer high-quality video and audio in addition to text. The technology that made Skype special two decades ago is now utterly commoditized, and maybe the world just no longer needed the company that made it all possible. I would happily trade most of what's available in modern messaging apps for the Skype feature set circa about 2007 But before it goes offline for good, let's just quickly give Skype its due. No company before or since has had an idea about communication as fundamentally correct as Skype: that what the internet needed was an all-in-one communication system. With Skype, you could call other Skype users, obviously. But you could also call anyone with a phone number. You often had to pay for it, but still: that idea alone remains the most ambitious thing anyone's ever done in internet chat. Skype's founders understood that they weren't building a platform — they were building a global communication system. I would happily trade most of what's available in modern messaging apps for the Skype feature set circa about 2007. You could make high-quality calls over voice and video, to practically anyone anywhere on the planet. You could send instant messages to other Skype users, or SMS messages to anyone with a phone. Your Skype account had an answering machine, so people could leave you messages. With Skypecasts, you could have up to 100 people in a single moderated call. Skype was available on every platform that mattered, and its quality was unbeatable. At its peak, Skype was enormous. In 2009, The New York Times reported the app had 405 million users, and accounted for 8 percent of all the world's international calling minutes. Skype was a verb! You didn't call someone from your laptop, you Skyped them. And its ringtone remains one of the most iconic internet sounds of all time. Ultimately, it seems that what killed Skype was the very thing that made it so powerful all those years ago: its peer-to-peer technology, borrowed from the file-sharing platform Kazaa (its founders previous startup), that connected users directly to each other instead of hosting everything on the internet. This made it vastly easier and cheaper to scale the service when bandwidth was still hugely expensive, but caused trouble over time. Only a few people truly understood how it worked, one early Skype employee told me, and as Skype was growing there was hardly any incentive to re-architect the whole system. After a while, the system became so specialized, and tuned to so many edge cases, that it began to collapse under its own weight. Pivoting Skype to an internet-based system, which Microsoft eventually did, was a huge amount of work. Skype's outdated tech became a particular problem when mobile platforms became dominant. It both obviated some of Skype's coolest features — I now have a thousand different ways to ping your phone, with or without your phone number — and killed some of the appeal of the peer-to-peer tech. P2P requires devices to be always on and always connected; the way mobile phones are architected just doesn't allow an app to stay awake all the time. And that's not even counting all the vagaries of mobile networks around the world. Skype turned into a knockoff of a bunch of better social apps At the same time, though, Microsoft didn't always help Skype's chances. For a while, Microsoft appeared all-in: the company already had a popular messaging service, Windows Live Messenger, but retired that in 2012 to focus on Skype. But then, 'Instead of refining the product, the focus shifted to cramming in features and maximizing the number of users Microsoft could pull in,' Bartosz Jaworski, a former product manager at Skype, wrote in a blog post after the shutdown was announced. Microsoft added a bunch of features nobody really cared about, inexplicably created a new app called Skype Qik, and launched a full redesign that went over so badly Microsoft had to redesign it again a year later. After a while, the app that had once been so far in front of its competition turned into a knockoff of a bunch of better social apps. By 2016, when Teams launched, it became obvious that Microsoft would focus more on its business-friendly brand than its renegade consumer platform. When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, Skype's user numbers jumped, but Zoom took its place as the video-chat app of choice. That was Skype's last chance to stay relevant, and probably the last nail in its coffin. Microsoft has little use for a free consumer chat app, and none for a second-tier one. The business of consumer chat is a tough one — it might not even exist, at least on its own — and so eventually everything goes commercial. What we're stuck with now is just a bunch of platforms. Zoom is trying desperately to become Microsoft Office; Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are just features inside their companies' larger work platforms. WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and the rest are closed ecosystems. Your phone number has become a sort of universal username, but it still means we're all stuck with a dozen chat apps on our phone just to talk with our friends. And sure, if you want the lowest possible quality and worst possible feature set, you can always make phone calls and send text messages. Apple's iMessage system is probably the closest thing to a spiritual Skype successor in terms of its ability to work with lots of technologies, but that comes with plenty of its own problems and lock-in issues. All those years ago, Skype was right: we don't need another social platform or suite of work apps. We need a new layer for communication on the internet. We need something that operates between apps and devices, that doesn't care where you've registered an account. We need something that doesn't force us to put all our trust in a company that has quarterly results to worry about. What I'm describing is probably a terrible business, and a force for good on the internet. Skype was ultimately very much both those things. I stopped using it years ago, but I'll miss it anyway.
Boston Globe
12-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Trump tariffs are a rude awakening for border cities that bet on trade
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, took effect in 1994, the region has grown into a $250 billion economic machine. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It's a third country,' Rafael Fernández de Castro, head of the Center for US-Mexican Studies at the University of California at San Diego, said of the binational entity that has arisen, combining cultures and economies. Advertisement Mexican officials are cautiously optimistic that the region will survive the onslaught of US tariffs, in part because many products are shielded by the free trade agreement. But jobs could disappear in both countries if tariffs disrupt a system of co-production that has sent car parts, airplane components and medical equipment zipping back and forth over the border. The uncertainty of the on-again, off-again tariffs has prompted many companies to pause investments. Confusion reigns over which products will qualify for the free-trade exemption, with the vital car-manufacturing industry widely expected to take a hit. And Trump may not be finished layering tariffs on Mexico. On Thursday, he threatened more, because of what he called the country's failure to observe an 81-year-old water-sharing treaty. Advertisement 'We've lived 30 years under a nontariff, free-trade environment,' said Ernesto J. Bravo, a senior manager at Tecma, a firm providing logistical, customs and administrative services to export-oriented firms along the border. 'All that is now changing dramatically.' Trump imposed the tariffs in part to shore up US industry and drive more manufacturing jobs to the United States. It could take months for the effects to become clear - and some might not be what the US leader expected. Kenia Zamarripa, a vice president at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, worries that the measures could push up the price of steel, lumber and medical instruments - making it harder to build or run hospitals in California. 'Those things we have been promised as reasons to invest in the region are now at risk,' Zamarripa said. Ernesto J. Bravo, a top executive at Tecma, in his warehouse in San Diego on Wednesday. His firm helps exporting businesses with logistics and customs. He says Trump's tariffs have whipsawed the border region. Mary Beth Sheridan/TWP The moment tariffs became real Border residents have survived bouts of economic turbulence. In 2017, after Trump was first inaugurated, he insisted on a renegotiation of NAFTA, calling it 'the worst trade deal ever made.' The free-trade accord was largely preserved in its replacement: the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, USMCA. Two years later, Trump warned he'd impose crushing tariffs unless Mexico cracked down on US-bound migrants. It complied, and he dropped the threats. Then came the covid-19 pandemic. But those were nothing compared with this time. Normally, Bravo's firm sends 400 to 800 truckloads of goods across the border each week - everything from furniture to TVs to water-treatment equipment. But recently, the free-trade system screeched to a halt. Advertisement Trump had pledged to slap 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Mexico in February unless it reduced the flow of fentanyl and migrants to the United States. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum persuaded him to hold off for a month, while she rushed troops to the border. In early March, she won another month-long reprieve - but a few days passed before it kicked in. In the meantime, a 25 percent tariff descended on Mexican exports. 'It was a major impact and a major wake-up call to the industry that, 'Hey - this is very real,'' said Bravo. He sent only about a dozen trucks over the border in that period. Since then, Trump has narrowed the 25 percent tariff. He says it won't apply to products that qualify for duty-free treatment under the USMCA. The trouble is that's only around half of Mexico's exports. Even for eligible goods, many companies did not go through the trouble of shipping under USMCA, with its paperwork and requirements for quantities of North American components, opting instead to ship under low- or zero-tariff rules set by the World Trade Organization. Now, they're scrambling. It's one thing to switch a basic item, like avocados, from one set of rules to the other. But a car might have 10,000 unique parts, each with its own customs code, Bravo said. Manufacturers of electrical, communications and auto goods are being forced to investigate the origin of each part, even those purchased in Mexico. They're hunting for substitutes in North America for components made in China to be able to export duty-free. Advertisement The medical-instruments industry, a major manufacturer in the Tijuana area, is already warning of price hikes for critical items such as pacemakers and insulin pumps. Mexico could grab market share from China Despite the new obstacles, some Mexican politicians say the country may benefit from the tariffs - because China is facing even higher ones. Adriana Eguía is vice president of Vesta, an industrial real estate firm. She's typical of the bilingual, bicultural managers in the export industry. She grew up on the Mexican side of the border, married an American and lives in San Diego. She works from a stylish penthouse office with a sweeping view of Tijuana. In February and March, she saw little business, as Trump imposed trade measures that affected Mexico: the tariffs over fentanyl and migration, a 25 percent global tariff on steel and aluminum, and a similar tax on auto imports. (Vehicles from North America will be taxed only on the non-US parts.) Adriana Eguía, vice president of a Mexican industrial real estate firm, in her office overlooking Tijuana on Wednesday. She says she's hopeful Trump's tariffs will eventually help Mexico, since they're less than those imposed on China. Mary Beth Sheridan/TWP Then came his tariffs on China - which jumped from 54 percent to 104 percent, then 145 percent. 'The last three days have been crazy,' Eguía said. More than a half-dozen clients suddenly appeared at her office, trying to secure industrial properties. Most represented Chinese firms, she said, presumably looking to manufacture under the terms of the free-trade treaty. Three miles away, in an aging, gritty factory tucked into a modest Tijuana neighborhood, René Romandía is dreaming big. He's run a variety of manufacturing businesses over the years - making bodyboards, face masks during the pandemic, packaging materials. It's been a struggle; the Chinese government subsidizes many industries, which export a flood of cheap goods. 'This moment is completely different,' Romandía said. 'Because now we can compete on price against China.' Advertisement His phone rang. Trump had just hiked tariffs - again. 'Fifty percent more on China! Okay, papi,' Romandía said and put the phone down. He grinned. 'It's like, when the two giants are fighting and you are just watching them fight,' he said. 'We are getting benefits.' Still, it's unclear how much Mexico could benefit from the tariffs. One big unknown: whether the Trump administration will subject components to potential tariffs every time they cross the border. That could be ruinous for industries like autos and medical instruments. Mexico is trying to negotiate an exemption for such co-production. Sheinbaum's government has said it wants to seize this moment to develop more Mexican-made parts, to supplant imports from China and elsewhere. But the government is burdened by a 6 percent fiscal deficit, the highest in decades, and businesses have said they're wary of investing after Sheinbaum introduced a judicial reform that many say will politicize the justice system. Ultimately, many people in the border region say the close US-Mexico trade relationship is likely to endure, since it benefits Americans, too - helping US firms stay competitive globally, and providing consumers with lower prices. This week more than 100 officials and business leaders from San Diego and Tijuana traveled to Washington to lobby - as one region. 'We're super far away from both capitals, and things are done differently here,' said Eguía. 'We have this hybrid culture.' Ernesto Eslava in Tijuana and Valentina Muñoz Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this report.
The Guardian
09-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's claim that Mexican cartels and government are allied is not reality
Mexico breathed a sigh of relief this week when Donald Trump delayed his threatened tariffs by a month, apparently swerving away from an economic crisis at the last moment. But one aspect of the spat still rankles: the Trump administration's vague but shocking accusation of an 'intolerable alliance' between Mexico's government and organised crime. The phrase marked a step change in US discourse, and made every headline in Mexico. But experts say it misses the mark. 'Of course Mexico has a problem with corruption,' said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a political scientist in Mexico City. 'But the Mexican government is not an ally of organised crime. And those who say it is are lying, or simply do not know or understand Mexico.' Organised crime could be seen as a ubiquitous but uneven 'parallel power', said Will Freeman, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 'Sometimes it works with the state; sometimes it fights it. Sometimes they just exist side by side,' Freeman said. Corruption is most prevalent at a municipal level, which is both the least protected layer of the state and where criminal groups seek deals with authorities to deepen their control over the local territory and its businesses. This was on show during the 2024 elections, when more than 30 candidates were killed as criminal groups competed for influence. But corruption has gone higher up, too. Several state governors have been extradited to the US for ties to organised crime, while the Trump administration cited the case of Genaro García Luna, the former security chief who was recently sentenced to 38 years in US prison for receiving bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. Then there were the allegations against Salvador Cienfuegos, the former defence minister who was arrested on drug-trafficking charges at the Los Angeles airport, only to be released under pressure from the Mexican government. But such cases did not equate to an alliance, a term that tarred the whole of the government, said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, a researcher at the University of California at San Diego. 'The way it's phrased implies that it's all done with the knowledge of the Mexican government, and almost willingly,' said Farfán-Méndez. 'No one denies the existence of corruption in Mexico. But that's very different to saying [the government is] an active participant.' US frustration may have stemmed from its perception that the Mexican government has more intelligence than it acts on. 'The army has such power in Mexico,' said Freeman. 'I think they see and hear everything that's going on.' But inaction may just reflect differing priorities: while the US wants to go after top drug traffickers, Mexico primarily wants to reduce violence. And in practice, these objectives often run counter to one another, said Pérez Ricart. Last year, Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, was detained along with one of Guzmán's sons after a small plane arrived in the US. This started a war within the Sinaloa cartel that has killed or disappeared almost 2,000 people so far. The Mexican government was blindsided by the arrests, and blamed the US for triggering the violence. US authorities have denied their involvement, while celebrating the arrest of El Mayo. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion 'This is what happens when you have unilateral, uncoordinated actions,' said Farfán-Méndez. 'What is happening in Sinaloa is not a desirable outcome.' If the US is frustrated by Mexico's lack of action on fentanyl, Mexico has 'every right to be frustrated, too', said Pérez Ricart: 'The US keeps selling guns that end up in Mexico.' She added: 'There's frustration on all sides – but diplomacy is the way to resolve it.' Trump and the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, both of whom took power within the space of a few months, inherited a bilateral security relationship in tatters. However, the political situation in Mexico could be ripe to rebuild it – if the Trump administration wants to take the opportunity, said Freeman. Sheinbaum has a rare level of political power, with sky-high approval ratings and her party, Morena, holding a two-thirds supermajority in congress. Sheinbaum is also changing Mexico's security strategy, taking steps to confront organised crime and untangle its penetration of local government. 'You have the ingredients in Mexico now – and maybe not again – to actually do something about this,' said Freeman. 'If the gloves-off toughness from Washington was coupled with some actual intelligence, this could be a really important turning point.' He added: 'But ultimately I think Trump's theory of the region is just to harden the US-Mexico border – and who cares what happens to the south of that.'
