I think López Obrador doesn’t want to confront Trump openly, but he’s trying to create
some bridges of cooperation with other aspects, other dimensions of the U.S. government.
For example, he had a meeting recently with a U.S. congressman about the possibility of
creating some kind of inversion program in southern Mexico and Central America.
I think that’s what he wants to do, because he is not really trying to stop the flow of
migrants, because he knows, even though he doesn’t want to acknowledge it openly, because
he wants to avoid this confrontation with Trump—he knows that sending back migrants
to Central America is sending back these people to unlivable situations because of violence.
So, I think that what he wants to do is just not to confront Trump openly, try to work
in some kind of cooperation program with the U.S. and try to create what could be, if it
is ambitious enough, some kind of Marshall or neo-Marshall program, but with southern
Mexico and Central America.
And about the first months of the López Obrador presidency, I would say that there is a very
powerful change in the discourse of the government, of the federal government.
If you contrast what a president like López Obrador says to what the recent—the other
recent presidents of Mexico have said, there is a real change.
So, for example, López Obrador is one of the few Mexican politicians who talk about
inequality as a main problem of Mexico.
And I think he’s right.
So, that’s, to a great extent, the reason why he won last year the elections.
But now the question is to find out whether he’s really going to deliver in that sense.
So, so far, he has created a very ambitious social spending program that is going to be
funded, according to his calculations, with cuts in government spending in other areas,
especially what he considers to be excessive spending of Mexican government officials.
So, this is probably going to work for a while.
But in the long run what is needed is a deep tax reform, because in Mexico, you know, the
richer classes, the richest people, really don’t pay taxes.
So, I think a program of such spending as ambitious as López Obrador’s cannot really
be sustainable if there is not some kind of deep, radical tax reform.
People in Mexico feel that there’s a sense of authenticity in what López Obrador says
and what he does.
So, this symbol, for example, of the selling the presidential plane was really important
in his discourse about austerity—but austerity not in the sense, in the neoliberal sense,
of cutting especially social spending, but austerity in the sense of cutting off the
excessive, let’s say, luxuries that many government officials used to have before he
came to power.
He also has made this policy of having every day, very early in the morning, probably about
to start right now, these conferences with the press.
So, this is also a very important change, because the previous president, Peña Nieto,
almost practically never had a free, open, spontaneous encounter with the press.
So, López Obrador has changed that.
And so, this, I think, adds up to this sense of authenticity that he can—that he displays
and that is really perceived by the Mexican public.
However, I think there are a couple of issues that might turn problematic in the next years.
So, for example, there has been also an important change in discourse about security and about
the fight against crime.
But the concrete measures that this new government is about to adopt are ambivalent in that sense.
So there might be a clash between the sense of the discourse that the president has adopted
and the actual implications of the policies, such as the creation of this so-called National
Guard, that is supposed to be a hybrid between military and civilian elements, but that leaves
open the door for a continuation of the policy of militarization that has characterized Mexico
in the last 12 years, that has created a great toll in human suffering through the disappearances
of tens of thousands of people, the murder or killing of hundreds of thousands of people,
and a large amount of human rights abuses on the part of the military in Mexico.