Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy
93 episodes
1 month ago
Tony Payan interviews academics, former government officials, and other experts on issues central to U.S.-Mexico relations, including trade, immigration, and public safety. New episodes are released monthly.
The podcast is hosted by the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. through original research, relevant solutions to binational policy issues, and the advancement of mutual understanding, we seek to have a meaningful impact on the U.S.-Mexico relationship.
Learn about our work at bakerinstitute.org/usmx.
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Tony Payan interviews academics, former government officials, and other experts on issues central to U.S.-Mexico relations, including trade, immigration, and public safety. New episodes are released monthly.
The podcast is hosted by the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. through original research, relevant solutions to binational policy issues, and the advancement of mutual understanding, we seek to have a meaningful impact on the U.S.-Mexico relationship.
Learn about our work at bakerinstitute.org/usmx.
92: ‘Chocolate Cars’: Illegal Vehicle Imports to Mexico From the US (Guests: Guillermo Rosales Zárate & Juan Vega Gómez)
Judy Ley Allen México Centered
39 minutes
2 months ago
92: ‘Chocolate Cars’: Illegal Vehicle Imports to Mexico From the US (Guests: Guillermo Rosales Zárate & Juan Vega Gómez)
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.
Judy Ley Allen México Centered
Tony Payan interviews academics, former government officials, and other experts on issues central to U.S.-Mexico relations, including trade, immigration, and public safety. New episodes are released monthly.
The podcast is hosted by the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston, Texas. through original research, relevant solutions to binational policy issues, and the advancement of mutual understanding, we seek to have a meaningful impact on the U.S.-Mexico relationship.
Learn about our work at bakerinstitute.org/usmx.
