US Halts Avocado Inspections in Michoacan Over Threat

The United States announced Wednesday that it had suspended all government operations in the Mexican state of Michoacan because of a "threat to U.S. interests," including the avocado inspections required for export to the American market.

The U.S. Embassy did not specify the nature of the threat in its security alert. Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla said on social media that the temporary halt to inspections was meant to safeguard workers following recent arrests linked to extortion.

The inspections are a prerequisite for avocados to be shipped to the United States, and their suspension could disrupt exports. The Department of Agriculture sends inspectors to Mexico to monitor plantations and packing houses and confirm that produce is free of pests. Threats and violence against those inspectors have prompted suspensions in the past.

Michoacan, in western Mexico, is the leading exporter of avocados to the United States and has a high level of organized crime activity, with at least four cartels — designated as terrorist organizations by the Trump administration — operating in the region. Beyond drug trafficking, the cartels make money through extortion, including of the avocado industry.

Michoacan State Security Secretary Antonio Cruz told The Associated Press that one of the arrests cited by the governor was of "El Poncho," the alias of Alfonso Fernández Magallón, the leader of a local cartel operating in the avocado-growing region around Los Reyes. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson welcomed the arrest, which came over the weekend. The U.S. government had offered a $5 million reward for Fernández Magallón's capture.

Cruz said his department was unaware of any direct incidents involving the avocado inspectors. Even so, 300 security personnel were deployed to the Los Reyes area as a preventive measure.

The governor said the priority was to "ensure the security conditions necessary for these operations to resume normally," as has happened before.

Mexico supplies roughly 80% of U.S. avocado imports, a product known in the region as "green gold." Cultivation generates about 200,000 jobs in Michoacan alone. In 2025, Mexico sold $3.65 billion worth of avocados to the United States, and in the first four months of this year those exports rose 35% compared with the same period a year earlier.