Last Updated Jan 5, 2017 7:39 PM EST
The country’s business chambers said the combination of highway, port and terminal blockades and looting this week forced many stores and businesses to close and threatened supplies of basic goods and fuel.
Mexicans were enraged by the 20 percent fuel price hike announced over the weekend as part of a government deregulation of the energy sector. Protesters began blocking highways and gas stations and some people have broken into stores to carry off merchandise.
Authorities said one policeman was run over and killed and another was seriously injured when they tried to stop robberies at a gas station in Mexico City. Police in the capital said they had arrested 76 people for looting about 29 stores.
In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a pickup truck trying to flee police during a store looting ran over a pedestrian, killing him, officials said.
Veracruz Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes Linares ventured out Thursday and tried to persuade a crowd not to attack a grocery store that had already been looted a day earlier. He offered the crowd coupons for 500 pesos ($23.25) if they would desist from looting.
In Mexico State, which borders Mexico City, 430 people had been detained as suspected looters. Four state police officers were fired and detained after they were caught on video taking some looted items and putting them in their patrol vehicles.
With blockades affecting everything from gas distribution terminals, seaports and highways to shopping centers and gas stations, the Communications and Transport Department announced it would cancel permits for any truckers who block roads.
Truck and taxi drivers have been among the most affected by the fuel price increases, which took effect as the government ends regulated prices for gasoline and diesel, which it says represented subsidies that unduly benefited wealthier Mexicans.
Residents pilfer gasoline and diesel from a gas station following protests against an increase in fuel prices in Allende, southern Veracuz State, Mexico, late Tuesday Jan. 3, 2017.
The change boosted the average price for a liter of premium gasoline to 17.79 pesos (about 90 cents). That makes 4 liters, or about a gallon, equal to nearly as much as Mexico’s just raised minimum wage for a day’s work — 80 pesos (about $4).
President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday that he would try to help groups hit hard by the increases.
“I understand the anger and irritation felt by the general public” over the price increases, Pena Nieto said. But, he added, “If this decision had not been taken, the effects and consequences would have been far more painful.”
The Mexican Council of Bishops urged the government to reconsider the price increases, which it said especially hurt the poor.
“One has to be sensitive to the daily needs of the people,” the bishops said in a statement. “It is not right to impose laws without taking into account peoples’ realities and their feelings.”
But the bishops also called on protesters to stop looting and “use peaceful and creative means to express their feelings.”
The National Association of Self-Service and Department Stores of Mexico said in a statement Wednesday night that more than 79 stores had been looted and 170 were closed or blockaded in central Mexico, including the capital.
The unrest “resulting in the theft of merchandise put at risk the lives of clients and workers in the stores, primarily in Mexico State, Michoacan, Hidalgo and Mexico City,” the statement said.
In the city of Veracruz, 50 establishments including convenience stores, supermarkets and big-box outlets suffered looting, according to a preliminary count by the local chamber of commerce Wednesday. Store guards were overrun by crowds who carried off clothing, food, washing machines, televisions, DVD players and refrigerators.
Extra police patrols were deployed, and at least 14 people were detained, the state government reported. At one supermarket officers fired into the air to disperse the multitudes.

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Tilikum, an orca that killed a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010, has died.
SeaWorld said in a statement posted online that Tilikum died on Friday. A cause of death has not yet been determined, although the killer whale was being treated for a persistent bacterial infection. He was estimated to be 36 years old.
Tilikum was profiled in the documentary Blackfish, which helped sway popular opinion against keeping killer whales in captivity at SeaWorld parks.
SeaWorld’s most prolific male orca sired 14 calves in the 23 years he was at Orlando.
Criticism over keeping orcas captive grew after Tilikum grabbed trainer Dawn Brancheau following a “Dine with Shamu” show and pulled her into the pool, killing her.
Tilikum was also involved in the deaths of two other people in the 1990s.
SeaWorld president and chief executive Joel Manby said: “Tilikum had, and will continue to have, a special place in the hearts of the SeaWorld family, as well as the millions of people all over the world that he inspired.
“My heart goes out to our team who cared for him like family. ”
Tilikum was noticeable for his size at more than 22ft and 11,800lb.
He was born off the waters of Iceland and moved to the Sealand of the Pacific aquarium in Canada after being captured.
While at Sealand in 1992, Tilikum and two female orcas were responsible for the death of a part-time trainer who slipped and fell into their pool and was submerged by them.
Tilikum was moved to SeaWorld Orlando a short time later, and Sealand later closed.
In 1999, a naked man who had eluded security and sneaked into SeaWorld at night was found dead the next morning draped over Tilikum in a breeding tank in the back of Shamu Stadium.
But it was the death of Ms Brancheau that left the biggest impact on the future of orcas at SeaWorld parks.
She was interacting with Tilikum before a live audience at SeaWorld Orlando when he pulled her from a platform by her arm and held her under the water. A post-mortem said Ms Brancheau drowned but also suffered severe trauma, including multiple fractures.
SeaWorld Entertainment officials announced in March last year that the tourist attraction would end its orca breeding programme and theatrical shows involving killer whales. The decision came six years after Ms Brancheau’s death and three years after the release of Blackfish, which chronicled Tilikum’s life and Ms Brancheau’s death.
The documentary argued that killer whales held in captivity become more aggressive towards humans and each other. After the documentary played at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on CNN, several entertainers pulled out of planned performances at SeaWorld sites and animal rights activists increased their demonstrations outside the parks.
Attendance at SeaWorld parks dipped, the company faced falling profits and Southwest Airlines ended its 25-year relationship with the theme park company.
In March, Mr Manby acknowledged that the public’s attitude had changed about keeping killer whales captive and that the company would end its orca breeding programme.
“We needed to move where society was moving,” he said.
AP

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