The Mexican Election and The Border
With Joe Biden more or less admitting that his management of the Mexican border hasn’t gone as well as he expected, and with the election of a new president in Mexico, it’s worth recalling what might have been the deftest accomplishment of Trump’s first presidency, Trump’s agreement on a remain-in-Mexico plan with Mexican president AMLO.
Although most of the U.S. coverage of the election of Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo has focused on her becoming Mexico’s first female president (and also first Jewish president), the bigger picture is that former mayor of Mexico City is a protege of Lopez Obrador, the leftist-populist current president (who was also mayor of the vast city).
The fundamental rule of Mexican politics is that while presidents are pretty much dictators in office, they only get one six year term. This term limit was instituted 95 years ago to keep politicians from killing each other: under the one term rule, if you live long enough, your faction will get their man in power and then you can make hay while the sun shines (but only for six years0.
The PRI won, or at least claimed to win all the 20th Century elections (the 1988 election was likely stolen live on TV on election night when, with the Left in the lead, the vote counting computer suddenly stopped working. When it was turned back on, whaddaya know?, the ruling centrist PRI was back in the lead.)
The centrist party finally lost in 2000 to the pro-business right wing party, but the PRI came back into power in 2012. The Left finally won in 2018.
Would AMLO turn Mexico into an economic wasteland like the Left did to Venezuela?
No. At least so far, AMLO appears to have done a respectable enough job that his protege won easily. (Of course, it’s not unknown for the wheels to come off a seemingly successful Mexican administration in its last few months, such as in 1976, 1982, and 1994, often due to looting by outgoing insiders. And will AMLO gracefully retire and let the elected president rule or will he attempt to be the power behind her throne?)
Still, it’s good for Mexico to have a credible, competent populist Left.
Despite the ideological differences between Trump and AMLO, they were strikingly amicable personally. And their joint remain-in-Mexico program cut down on the flow of third party foreigners pouring through Mexico to get into the U.S.
Biden, in contrast, has had fairly poor personal relations with AMLO, and junked remain-in-Mexico, with predictably catastrophic consequences.