Mexico has declared war on one of its deadliest foes – but not one of the country’s many powerful drug cartels. Rather, the Latin American country has doubled down on its battle against a more silent killer: sugary drinks.
“We want people to stop drinking so much soft drink,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum bluntly at a news conference this week. The country’s 2026 budget, unveiled on Monday, proposed to nearly double the current tax rate on sugary drinks from 1.64 pesos (9 cents) per liter to 3.08 pesos per liter.
The move has sparked fierce debate in Mexico, with some welcoming the government’s initiative as a genuine attempt to tackle an epidemic of obesity – and others viewing it as a boldfaced money-making scheme.
Mexico is one of the world’s top consumers of sugary drinks, with Mexicans consuming on average 166 litres of soda per year. This has had a devastating impact on the country’s health: one in three Mexican children are overweight or obese while, at 100,000 deaths a year, diabetes is the nation’s second-leading cause of death.
“It’s deadlier than the drugs trade,” said Viri Ríos, a Mexican public policy analyst.
The country has for years tried to tackle the problem, implementing a then-groundbreaking 10% tax on all sweetened beverages in 2014, which helped to reduce consumption by nearly 10%.
Then in 2020, the country passed a law requiring warning labels on food and drink packages that contained “excess” sugar, calories, sodium or saturated fat – including soft drinks. Meanwhile, earlier this year, a law took effect banning junk food in schools, including sodas.
The 2026 tax hike represents the latest effort by Mexican authorities to curb consumption of sugary drinks.
Unveiling the budget, the finance minister, Édgar Amador, said the increases to taxes for fizzy drinks and tobacco were “to encourage healthier habits and counteract the budgetary effects associated with the treatment of diseases linked to the consumption of these products”.
Health authorities said they expected the tax hike to decrease soda consumption by nearly 7% in the first two years after its implementation.
“The global evidence is overwhelming,” said the undersecretary for integration and development of the health sector, Eduardo Clark García. “Healthy measures like the one we are implementing in Mexico save lives; they reduce the consumption of harmful products, such as soda and other sugary drinks, and thus improve individual and overall population health.”
Ríos called the measure “extraordinary”: “It’s a necessary and positive tax for the country and its people.”
But others were far more skeptical.
“There is definitely no scientific evidence that we are going to see either in the short or long term a positive impact on health indicators,” said Xavier Tello, a public health analyst. “What we are going to see is a direct impact on the finances of the population.”
Valeria Moy, a Mexican economist and director general of IMCO, a public policy thinktank, said the tax was purely a money-making effort by the government.
“People don’t consume less,” she said. “They just pay the higher price.”
The soft drink tax increase is expected to bring in 41bn pesos ($2bn) in added revenue, which will go towards addressing the health impacts of soda consumption, the government said.
“All money raised will go directly to a health fund,” said Sheinbaum at a news conference on Tuesday. “It’s not a fundraising decision, but rather one that’s about the health of Mexicans.”
At a news conference on Thursday, the health minister, David Kershenobich, outlined in greater detail how the funds would be spent. The first measure, he said, would be a media campaign focused on reducing sugary drink consumption and promoting healthier living standards.
Kershenobich also said the government would be rolling out an improved detection and monitoring program for diseases caused by sugary drinks. He also outlined a number of new medications that would be made more widely available, as well as increased dialysis coverage.
But analysts pointed out that there was nothing in the budget indicating exactly how the soda tax funds were set to be spent.
“They’re lying,” said Tello, the public health analyst. “If you analyze the federal revenue budget, there’s no allocation for that, nor in the expenditure budget … They’re going to take the money and put it into a general fund, which is the treasury.”
Still, Sheinbaum said earlier in the week she hoped that the government’s fundraising strategy would be a failure.
“In the case of soft drinks: I hope we don’t collect anything from soft drinks. Why? Because what we want is for people to stop consuming so many sugary drinks.”
