Despite the exceptional appeal of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism as a solution to the strong CP problem, alternative mechanisms should still be pursued. In this direction, I will present in the first part of my talk how a Nelson-Barr mechanism (NB) arises automatically in the context of gauged flavor models. Given the tight connection of the strong CP problem with flavor, this framework will be shown to solve some of the issues of usual NB realizations.
In the second part of my talk, I will briefly comment on a recent idea to look for axions using the LHC as a Light Shining through Wall experiment. Based on 2204.03599.