Policy detail from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Judy Ley Allen México Centered is a policy conversation show anchored in the practical pressures shaping the U.S.-Mexico relationship. Its recent episodes move from USMCA review and Mexico’s economy to border water management, cartel violence, press freedom, consular services, and binational health care.
PRESS PLAY
Judy Ley Allen México Centered is a policy show about the U.S.-Mexico relationship at ground level and institutional scale. It is interested in what actually holds the relationship together. Treaties matter here. So do dams, courts, consulates, trade rules, hospitals, journalists, municipal utilities, and the political choices that decide whether those systems work. Recent episodes show that range clearly. One conversation follows the North American Development Bank and its role in environmental issues along the border, especially water resilience. Another returns to water through the 1944 Water Treaty, drought, climate change, the Rio Grande, the Colorado River, farmers, border communities, and supply chains. Trade is treated with the same institutional patience. The show places the USMCA review alongside industrial policy, manufacturing, public trust in trade, and the competing pressures facing the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Mexico’s economy gets examined through investment decline, low productivity, informal work, fiscal strain, tax complexity, wages, working hours, and public investment. The political questions are rarely abstract. Conversations about organized crime and the rule of law address cartel power, violence, governance, U.S.-Mexico coordination, and the pressure on Mexican institutions. Press freedom appears as part of democratic life, with attention to state hostility, violence against journalists, online media, influencers, and the financial pressures facing critical outlets. Other episodes move through binational health care and the work of the Mexican consulate in Houston, including legal advice, support for women, community services, and relations with law enforcement authorities. The result is measured but not bloodless. It gives policy detail enough room to breathe while keeping the border, the public, and the consequences in view. The show is best understood as a guide to the systems that make U.S.-Mexico cooperation possible, fragile, and politically charged.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants careful, institution-level context on U.S.-Mexico affairs, especially trade, water, security, governance, and cross-border services. It also suits someone who prefers policy conversation over quick headline reaction.
What sets it apart: The show connects high-level binational policy to concrete border systems: water banks, trade agreements, consulates, hospitals, media finances, and local communities. Its strength is the steady movement between institutional design and practical consequences.
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.
A water treaty meets a drought, and you get the argument behind the delivery deadline.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how a binational bank supports practical cooperation on border water and environmental policy.
Border water pressures come into focus through the North American Development Bank, the binational institution created and funded by the United States and Mexico to tackle environmental challenges along the border.
A concise look at how one cartel leader's death could test Mexico's institutions and its relationship with the United States.
Nemesio Oseguera's death gives this episode a sharp test case for Mexico's institutions, and the conversation keeps its focus on the pressure points: organized crime, political power, and U.S.-Mexico cooperation. Tony Payan, director of the Baker Institute Claudio X.
Mexico's trade strengths collide with weak productivity, informality, and uncertain investment in a clear look at the rules behind growth.
Mexico's economic bind is framed less as a shortage of advantages than as a problem of rules, trust, and productivity. The country has a formidable industrial base, the United States as its largest trading partner, and a free trade agreement with the United States and Canada…
A grounded look at Mexico's critical press and the political pressures reshaping its media.
Mexican press freedom comes through as a driver of democratization, not just a record of Mexico's political change. Andrew Paxman, a professor of history and journalism at CIDE in Mexico City, follows the critical press from the 1980s through state hostility, violence against…
A grounded look at how drought is testing the treaty behind shared U.S.-Mexico waters.
The 1944 Water Treaty comes under clear pressure here, with climate change, prolonged drought, and rising demand tightening the shared water questions around the Rio Grande and Colorado River.
Sewing craft with culture in every seam.
Trade policy, explained where it actually bites.
["Episode 95 of Mexico Centered looks at how the North American Development Bank responds to the border's water crisis as trade, drought, and urban growth intensify pressure on the U.S.-Mexico border.", "John Beckham says the bank was created alongside NAFTA to address weak solid-waste, water, and air-quality infrastructure, and he points to trade rising from about $40 billion in 1993 to roughly $800 billion today.", "The discussion moves from basic potable water and sewage to water reuse, aquifer replenishment, irrigation modernization, and the bank's work across the Colorado River, Rio Grande, and Tijuana River basins.", "Beckham also explains the bank's financing model, the EPA's Border Water Infrastructure Program, and Texas efforts such as SB 1169, Proposition 4, and the Water Resiliency Fund."]
["Baker Briefing uses the February 22 death of Nemesio Oseguera, known as El Mencho, to examine CJNG's reach and the pressure on Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S.-Mexico relations.", "Tony Payan says the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is probably Mexico's most powerful criminal organization, with presence in more than 20 of the country's 32 states and activity in fentanyl, fuel theft, illegal mining, extortion, and kidnapping.", "The conversation ties the group's reaction to violence in 17 states to long-running state weakness, Lopez Obrador's nonconfrontation policy, and Sheinbaum's dilemma over whether to push deeper into cartel-linked politics.", "It also links the crackdown to U.S.
Mexico Centered episode 94 asks why Mexico can remain the United States' largest trading partner while posting only 0.7% GDP growth and a roughly 10% drop in investment.
Andrew Paxman traces Mexican press history from PRI-era subsidy networks and Televisa's dominance to the rise of Reforma, Proceso, and other critical outlets.
Rosario Sanchez says the 1944 Water Treaty has been amended 332 times through IBWC minutes, so the real question is not whether it can change but whether Mexico and the U.S.
Tony Payan hosts a discussion with C.J.
A conversation with Jose Nuñez about binational healthcare collaboration between the US and Mexico, focusing on Houston Methodist's international patient services and partnerships.
Consul General Alicia Kerber Palma discusses her career in the Mexican Foreign Service and the consulate's work serving the Mexican community in Houston.
This episode discusses health inequalities in the US-Mexico border region, including challenges like limited insurance and chronic diseases, with experts Eva Moya and Silvia Chavez-Baray.
Tony Payan discusses the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Mexico's economy, government reopening strategies, and US-Mexico relations.