Each year, hundreds of thousands of cars are imported illegally into Mexico from the United States. These unregistered “chocolate cars” — a play on the word “chueco,” which means “crooked” in Spanish — not only crowd out the national light vehicle market, but often fail to meet pollution and safety standards and can be used in serious crimes.

The used car industry in the U.S. is partially responsible for allowing the vehicles to enter Mexico at extremely low prices. But the Mexican government also contributes to the influx by occasionally legalizing their circulation. A regularization program for used imported vehicles was recently extended to 2026 in the final days of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador administration.

Guillermo Rosales Zárate, executive director of the Mexican Association of Dealerships (AMDA) and Juan Vega Gómez, a senior researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), joined Tony Payan on “México Centered” to explore the chocolate car phenomenon and the black and gray markets that emerge along the U.S.-Mexico border in the absence of critical binational coordination.

This conversation was recorded on July 22, 2025.

Featured guests:

• Guillermo Rosales Zárate, https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillermo-rosales-zárate-20258b19a/
• Juan Vega Gómez, https://www.juanvegagomez.com/

More about Tony Payan, Ph.D.: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/tony-payan Follow Tony Payan on X (@PayanTony) and LinkedIn.

You can follow @BakerInstitute and @BakerInstMexico on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Learn more about our data-driven, nonpartisan policy research and analysis at bakerinstitute.org.

In this episode of “México Centered,” experts Isabella D’Alacio, John Lindsay-Poland, and Gerardo Álvarez join Tony to shed light on the dangerous flow of firearms from the U.S. into Mexico. They explore how criminal networks traffic powerful weapons across the border, the cultural and political obstacles to reform, and the ongoing efforts to curb the illegal arms trade. Tune in for an in-depth, urgent conversation on one of the most pressing bilateral issues facing the U.S. and Mexico.

Featured guests:

• Isabella D’Alacio, https://voicesforprogress.org/staff/isabella-dalacio/

• John Lindsay Poland, https://www.johnlindsaypoland.com/

• Gerardo Álvarez, https://www.mucd.org.mx/conocenos/

This episode was recorded on May 21, 2025.

More about Tony Payan, Ph.D.: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/tony-payan Follow Tony Payan on X (@PayanTony) and LinkedIn.

Follow @BakerInstMexico on X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky. Subscribe to “US-Mexico Update,” our monthly newsletter, at bakerinstitute.org/newsletters.

Tony Payan joined David Satterfield, director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and host of the “Baker Briefing” podcast, to discuss the challenges Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is facing — both domestically and in its relationship with the United States.

This conversation was recorded on May 14, 2025. You can subscribe to “Baker Briefing” wherever you get your podcasts.

More about Tony Payan, Ph.D.: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/expert/tony-payan Follow Tony Payan on X (@PayanTony) and LinkedIn.

Learn more about our annual Mexico Country Outlook report and conference, happening Oct. 16, 2025, at Rice University: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/mco

You can follow @BakerInstitute and @BakerInstMexico on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Learn more about our data-driven, nonpartisan policy research and analysis at bakerinstitute.org.