2025 in cartoons
Also in this edition: Local resistance in the United States. Glyphosate: scientific fraud and multibillion-dollar profits. An exclusionary, elitist World Cup. Women graphic creators.
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This is the final issue of the newsletter for 2025. From the team of La Jornada Internacional, we thank you for being part of this community and hope we will continue together in 2026. We’ll be back on January 10th.
The Year as Seen by our Cartoonists
2025 wasn’t particularly funny, so it takes both the gift of synthesis and a sense of humor to sum it up. That’s why we’re closing the year with what La Jornada’s cartoonists offered as we revisit some of the year’s key moments. And if you’re already feeling nostalgic for the past 12 months, you can find the weekly selection of cartoons, features, opinion pieces, and supplements in the newsletter. And of course, all of that and more is in the 360 editions of the print newspaper. Happy holidays, and may the new year bring more truth, beauty, and laughter.
To view these cartoons in full size, open in the browser or app via the link in the upper right corner of the newsletter.
The Quote:
Am I not here, I who am your mother?
—Virgin de Guadalupe
In Case You Missed It
◻️ Local resistance in the U.S. Churches and mayors, along with brigades of thousands of volunteers across the country, continue to lead local resistance to the increasingly harsh and cruel anti-immigrant and anti-refugee measures pushed by the federal government, writes David Brooks. There is no better Christmas message than solidarity with and defense of the refugees Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and their contemporaries today. After all the story tells us that, in the end, they are the saviors of us all.
◻️ Salt farms in Sonora. When there is no work at sea, day laborers go to the salt farms to harvest. The Ojarasca supplement presents photographs of artisanal salt fields produced from water enclosures (solar ponds in the Gulf of California), located near the coast at Santa Bárbara Beach in Huatabampo, Sonora.
◻️ Glyphosate: scientific fraud and multibillion-dollar profits. Following the withdrawal of the “research study” that since 2000 had denied the health risks of glyphosate, governments around the world must immediately reevaluate the use of this herbicide, which has been classified as a possible human carcinogen. “When there’s a study this serious—the most cited one—saying glyphosate has no problems, and it turns out it was false, it has to be taken seriously. Mexico should ban it,” writes Silvia Ribeiro, researcher at the ETC Group and La Jornada columnist.
◻️ The road ahead for the USMCA. Experts tell La Jornada that six more months of obstacles, threats, and noise lie ahead, but in the end the agreement will be renewed. Despite the fact that Mexico buys more from Asia than from its USMCA partners combined, the Mexican Congress approved tariffs of up to 50 percent this month on products from China and 10 other Asian nations. The federal government hopes these tariffs will strengthen domestic manufacturing and spur job creation and skills development in the workforce. Government negotiators, business leaders, and unions in the United States and Mexico are working to influence the USMCA review.
◻️ An exclusionary, elitist World Cup. Tickets to attend any of the 104 matches of the 2026 World Cup have reached astronomical prices. In Mexico, although they initially went on sale at somewhat more accessible prices,around 1,092 pesos, resale prices range from 65,000 pesos to nearly 23 million pesos. “It’s definitely not affordable for an upper-middle-class Mexican family, even if they own a business,” said a private-sector expert. “Only two types of people can shell out 23 million pesos to watch a soccer match: organized crime bosses and those who benefit from labor exploitation, tax evasion, and financial deregulation,” La Jornada wrote in an editorial. Amid the outcry, FIFA began offering lower prices, but only a few hundred fans will be able to take advantage of those cheaper tickets.
◻️ Chile, back to the past. Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast defeated the center-left candidate by a wide margin. With this, “the caveman mentality arrives in the homeland of Salvador Allende,” La Jornada writes, concluding that “the right and the far right are taking over Latin America. The only countries in the region resisting the reactionary tide are Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay.” For Marcos Roitman Rosenmann, “Kast’s victory exposes the success of the neoliberal project. No matter who governs, the system perpetuates itself over time.”
◻️ Women graphic creators. Some 140 creators share their knowledge, the spaces they inhabit, their understanding of the body, nature, migration, organization, and sexuality in the exhibition Printmakers of Stories: Women in the Graphic Arts of the Peoples of Mexico, on view at the National Museum of Prints (MUNAE). “Each stroke becomes a mark that dialogues with the country’s graphic tradition. Each image is a form of resistance, a gesture that links past and present,” explains MUNAE director Emilio Payán.
