A Tariff-ic Gas Shortage
"What I just saw in México should worry all North Americans"
A sun-scorched stretch of asphalt uncoils like a lazy cat, stretches and limbers north to escape the streets of damp, formerly rainforested Mérida for the sunny, simmering sands of Progreso.
On the way, we pass through a curtain of mangroves. The murky swamp hides long-legged herons and the occasional heron-hunting crocodile from view of the road. Just beyond the estuary lies an ever-growing wind farm where tall turbines spin magnets, sending electrons south to the city.
Standing on that beach, it's possible to recall the ghosts of 1517, when Francisco Hernández de Córdoba arrived with a crew of 110 adventurers aboard two caravels and a brigantine. They were on a royal and papal quest for gold and silver and to spread the Gospel, but what they really wanted were slaves. Tasked by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Governor of Hispaniola, they had recruited Antón de Alaminos to navigate, as nothing says reliable navigation quite like the man who had advised Columbus on his search for India.
Renaissance Faire Meets Apocalypto
Somewhere near this beach, the seagoers landed on the beating heart of the as-yet-undiscovered Maya civilization. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo's journal, they marched inland until they arrived at Ti'ho, also known as Ichkanzihóo, meaning "City of the Five Hills," referring to its five great pyramids. This was among the first contacts between Europeans and the artistic urban centers, monumental stonework, and complex social organization of the Yucatán Maya.
But then, plot twist! Things went sour in Champotón, where half of Hernández's crew met their demise in an epic clash of Toledo steel against mahogany spears and arquebuses against blowguns. Hernández himself took a soon-to-be fatal hit, but before dying, survived the return to Havana and described the wealth and might he had witnessed.
Fast-forward to a present-day defeat: just before driving through the mangrove passage, we stopped for gas, only to find every pump wrapped in plastic. A second station was similarly draped. Eventually, we located an open station and filled up. What was going on?
My best guess? Tariffs.
The first abortive Spanish venture into the Yucatán interior, predating the more famous conquest expeditions of Hernán Cortés and Francisco de Montejo in the region, came away with no slaves. Still, it whetted the appetites in Hispanola and Madrid. Better-armed expeditions followed.
In 1542, Francisco de Montejo the Younger deemed Mérida worthy of his colonial capital. Piling up stones from the ancient ruins to build lavish mansions and a grand cathedral, his grand design wasn't just about aesthetics—it was to squash any hopes of indigenous revolt. He built barracks, fortified walls and strategic defense rings. There is a good reason for this.
Gonzalo Guerrero
In 1511, Gonzalo Guerrero's ship wrecked off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula near Cabo Catoche. He and a handful of survivors, including Jerónimo de Aguilar, were captured. Most were enslaved or sacrificed, but Guerrero earned his freedom the same way the mestizo Virgin of Guadalupe won over the corn-worshipers—by blending.
Embracing Maya customs, Guerrero adopted body tattoos, facial piercings, and married a Maya noblewoman, Zazil Há. He became a Maya war chief, teaching European military tactics to his adopted people and leading them in battles against both Spanish forces and rival Maya groups. Through courage, skill, and loyalty, he rescued a Maya lord in danger. Guerrero and Zazil Há had three children considered among the first mestizos—people of mixed indigenous and European descent—in México.
When the Spanish returned, Guerrero famously refused to rejoin his countrymen, explaining he now had a family, community, and a new identity. He continued to serve his adopted people and died in battle around 1536 while successfully leading Maya warriors against Spanish forces. He is remembered across Yucatán and México as a powerful symbol of resistance to conquest. This is why Montejo made Mérida as much a fort as a trade city and also why the organized Maya resistance in Central America held out another 160 years, until 1697, when the Itza chose trade over conquest. Today, there are approximately 7 million native Mayan speakers, compared to around 1.6 million in 1697. As of 2025, there are approximately 80 to 90 million mestizos in Mexico, and several times that number globally. So which side won? I think Gonzalo and Zazil would be smiling.
With the booming port of Sisal just a stone's throw away from Mérida (around 30 miles), goods flowed between Spain and its colony: henequen, rum, cacao, tobacco, and slaves sailing to distant shores while gunpowder, Spaniards, and horses rode the currents back. Sisal was eventually overshadowed by the port of Progreso, closer to Mérida, and Progreso boomed when oil was discovered just offshore.
Chixzulub's Tick
In 1975, an unlucky shrimp fisherman named Rudesindo Cantarell complained to authorities that his nets kept getting fouled with black tar. Discovered at the edge of the Chixzulub meteor crater, by 2004 the supergiant Cantarell oil field was churning out 2.1 million barrels per day—more than 13 billion barrels from 1979 to 2019. That converts to about 19.3 billion full-time human laborers producing 149.5 billion slave-years of labor. By that point, it seems México had more oil than common sense, which, if you've been paying attention, is a running theme.
This name is well known due to the Chicxulub crater, caused by a massive asteroid impact (100 million megatons) around 66 million years ago, associated with the mass extinction at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) Boundary that wiped out 75% of all species on Earth, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The meteor turned over a massive amount of rock, burying vast forests and bestowing upon México both the Cantarell supergiant province and the karst underground caverns found all across the Yucatán.
Tail of the Devil indeed.
You can have the biggest Slurpee in the world, but with a big enough straw, it will soon be gone.
As I frantically texted friends about the gas shortage I was seeing, I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Suppose gas stations in México have started closing to await resupply? It could presage massive layoffs and closures at Houston refineries.
Suddenly, I was transported to a historical showdown—one with the charismatic Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas going up against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Adamant about Mexican sovereignty, in 1938, Cárdenas nationalized all oil resources and sent American and Anglo-Dutch oil firms packing. For México, it was a matter of pride and national economic realities. They were nobody's punk.
It was a masterstroke of diplomacy that trumped even the loudest hawkish barks. Cárdenas was telling FDR, "We are not your servants. We can build our own refineries, too."
The Winds of War
FDR knew that México had been shipping its oil to Texas and Louisiana refineries, and from there, much of it was fueling the military remobilization. It would be vital in the war about to erupt. The smart move was to keep México in league with the Allied effort, not to push it towards the German Axis.
Roosevelt's hawks took a back seat to his Good Neighbor Policy, which emphasized respect for Latin American sovereignty and non-intervention. He merely asked that the oil companies be fairly compensated, and to that Cárdenas agreed. This gave the Allies access to Mexican oil. Cárdenas threw in the 201st Fighter Squadron, known as the 'Aztec Eagles' for good measure.
That all changed when the conservative president Enrique Peña Nieto
secretly met with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at a hacienda in
Northern México in 2006. While the ostensible agenda was bilateral
cooperation on trade, security, counternarcotics, and immigration, a key
cross-border legal framework arising from that was the 2012
Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement, signed with the Obama
administration, enabling joint oil and gas reservoir development in the
Gulf of México maritime border area. Under Peña Nieto's administration,
México enacted constitutional reforms in 2013 to open its oil and gas
sector to foreign investment and let in private companies like
Halliburton for the first time since Cárdenas' nationalization in 1938.
US companies entered into contracts with the state oil company PEMEX,
under which México would drill and Houston would refine. Oil flowed
north, got refined, and part of that returned to México for petroleum
and plastic.
Then came the bull to the china shop. On March 4, 2025, a 25 percent tariff was slapped onto Mexican crude oil and natural gas products. Canada received a 10 percent tariff on its Alberta shale and tar sands. So much for the trade negotiations of Bush and Obama that assured the steady flow of North American oil into US refineries.
What comes next? My guess: México says, thanks, but we'll build our own refineries now. Have a nice day. Maybe Claudia will send a vial of kerosene to the Rose Garden Ballroom.
A better suggestion: keep expanding the Progreso wind farm while also building affordable Mexican EVs to drive.
Animations created in DALLE-3, Dzine, Kling 2.1, and Google Veo 3
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#RestorationGeneration.
When humans are locked in a cage, the Earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.
We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. Coral reefs rebuilt with biorock build beaches faster than the seas are rising. It is not too late. All of these great works of nature are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.
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