Latin America Advisor | Can Meade Keep Mexico's Presidency in the PRI's Hands?

Q: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Nov. 27 backed his finance secretary, José Antonio Meade, to be the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate in the presidential election to be held next July. Why did Peña Nieto choose Meade, and will Meade’s close affiliation with the relatively unpopular lame-duck president hinder his candidacy? Does Meade have the support of the PRI at large? What will it take for Meade, often described as a U.S.-educated technocrat, to garner enough popular support to become Mexico’s next president?

A: Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas:

“José Antonio Meade, a lesser-known candidate who’s never run for office, is up against leftist former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a familiar face making his third go at the presidency and who leads polls in part thanks to voter dissatisfaction with the political status quo. So it seems like Meade, who has PhD from Yale and polls well with elites, could struggle to win popular support in time for election day. But it would be a big mistake to count him out. For starters, Meade’s ‘unknown’ status can be overcome, particularly given that political advertising is crucial to media outlets’ bottom lines in Mexico. Since Meade revealed plans to run, he has gotten nonstop coverage, proving the PRI machinery is gearing up for battle. Second, President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration hopes that what makes Meade different will also make him the victor. The PRI is tainted by corruption, but Meade remains untarnished. He’s held top cabinet posts, ranging from foreign relations to finance, under Peña Nieto, but also during the presidency of Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party, meaning he can siphon votes from the conservative PAN. In fact, Meade isn’t a PRI member; the party opened the door to his candidacy in August by changing its rules to allow non-priistas to run. Finally, Mexico has no runoff vote, and there could be more candidates this time around, given the possibility of some high-profile independents. Meade, or whoever wins, might do so with a third of the votes—or less. And the PRI is, at least publicly, projecting unity while other parties fall victim to infighting. There’s a long way to go between now and July 1, and the PRI is a formidable political force in Mexican politics, regardless of Peña Nieto’s approval rating.”

Read the full Q&A here.

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Getting Ready for the Next Big Earthquake in Mexico City

One month ago, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook Mexico City to its core. Hundreds lost their lives, and hundreds more their homes. As time passes and the capital recovers, what are some of the lessons learned? The fact that the disaster took place on the anniversary of the devastating 1985 earthquake—in which approximately 10,000 people died—showed how far Mexico City has come in the past three decades, as well as what needs to happen to prepare for future disasters.

“The 1985 earthquake was a wakeup call,” says Eugene Zapata-Garesché, 100 Resilient Cities’ regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining that that disaster proved there were two choices: either start preparing for future earthquakes or get out. “I don’t think there’s a possibility of moving 20 million people out of this valley,” Zapata-Garesché told AS/COA Online Editor-in-Chief Carin Zissis.

The earthquake that struck on September 19 showed strides made, thanks to changes in policies around water, power, and building codes, coupled with the fact that city’s residents know how to respond. In fact, the earthquake hit just a couple hours after a citywide drill. “Thirty years later, there’s evidence that following these protocols showed that they worked,” says Zapata-Garesché. “There is, of course, always room for improvement.”

“You can’t just sit and think that what you did 30 years ago is enough.”

Even with progress, many Mexicans have expressed frustration with the government, particularly when it comes to corruption related to the skirting of building codes that resulted in collapses and deaths. “The population cannot wait for the government to do it, but the government cannot also expect the population to do it alone,” says Zapata-Garesché, noting that a policy of resilience is now enshrined in Mexico City’s new Constitution. “This is an opportunity also for the city to rethink all its protocols, rethink all its building codes, its civil protection emergency response codes, and dialogue with the public.”

He also explains that earthquakes are a region-wide phenomenon, affecting everywhere from Baja California to Patagonia, but Latin America also has what he describes as a “love and hate relationship” with water, thanks to hurricanes, floods, and disasters. “We’re seeing how San Juan today is going to have to start from zero,” says Zapata-Garesché. “They have already understood that this is an opportunity to rethink completely how the city is structured.”

This podcast was produced by Luisa Leme.

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: What to Watch in NAFTA Negotiations

Within days of the first round of North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiations in August, President Donald Trump was once again threatening to withdraw the United States from the 23-year-old pact. But, aside from comments at a rally or some Sunday-morning tweets, can the president actually do that?

Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argues that, yes, he can—and that’s what he might do if his administration can’t secure the kinds of concessions he needs from Mexico and Canada to claim a political win. Leaving the deal, a move only 6 percent of Americans support, would come at a cost, though. “There will be a huge backlash if he terminates, both by the business community, which is benefiting, and workers who will discover that they were benefiting from NAFTA,” Hufbauer told AS/COA Online Editor-in-Chief Carin Zissis.

Still, Hufbauer suggests there is a good likelihood that the three countries will “muddle through” the talks, making minor concessions that might not leave any of the three parties satisfied but giving the appearance of a political win for all. One reason it will be hard to do much more is that both Mexico and the United States hold elections next year, meaning the talks can’t go much past January. “This notion of this five-month quickie is pretty optimistic,” said Hufbauer, who adds there’s a chance that provisional agreements will be made this year and then new rounds will commence in 2019, after elections conclude.

“There will be a huge backlash if [Trump] terminates.”

Setting aside political wrangling, negotiators will have to sit down and work out the technical details. Given that the United States will likely be looking for changes reflecting a “Buy American” protectionist streak, Mexico could find itself facing tough decisions over how to handle U.S. demands to trim a $64 billion trade deficit.

Hufbauer outlines what Mexico’s steps might be as the country prepares to host the second round of talks from September 1 to 5.

This podcast was produced by Luisa Leme.

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Jorge Castañeda Portends Changing Times for Mexico

What's the next step for Mexico in its 10-year-old drug war? What would it take to end the country’s corruption epidemic? And who will be the winner of the much-anticipated 2018 presidential election? Jorge Castañeda, a Mexican academic and former foreign secretary, spoke with AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis in Mexico City, sharing his answers to these questions and how they relate to a turbulent turn in U.S.-Mexican ties under the Trump administration.

For one thing, he says that Mexico does not have to help Washington carry out deportations and can block such moves by requiring the United States to prove deportees’ Mexican citizenship before repatriation. “Why should we let in people who they say are Mexicans, but who they cannot prove are Mexicans?” asks Castañeda, who served as a negotiator on U.S.-Mexico immigration reform during the government of Mexican President Vicente Fox. “This is an unfriendly American government. It makes no sense for Mexico to cooperate with them.”

Castañeda also says that Mexico’s next president would ideally be familiar with the United States and international issues, and who isn’t bogged down “by complicity with corruption of the past.” But, forecasting the winner, he says the 2018 election won’t deliver that result. “I think it will largely be a disaster,” he says. “But it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

Read a transcript of this interview.

The Christian Science Monitor, AS/COA Online | What Mexico wants to talk about with Trump

From a U.S. presidential candidate’s controversial visit to Mexico City in August 2016 to the Central Bank’s attempts to stop the free fall of the peso, Mexico has been trying to figure out how to prepare itself for a Trump presidency. In fact, it’s been a veritable round of “he said/he said,” as Donald Trump repeatedly insists that Mexico will pay for a border wall and President Enrique Peña Nieto repeatedly insists that it won’t.

The same thing happened again on January 11, during Trump’s first—and possibly his only—press conference as U.S. president-elect, when he said, “Mexico in some form, and there are many different forms, will reimburse us…for the cost of the wall.”

In remarks a few hours later, Peña Nieto said that Mexico will not do so, nor will it “accept anything that goes against our dignity as a country.” He went on to outline specific areas that he said would be a part of future negotiations with a Trump administration: arms trafficking, immigration, border infrastructure investment, remittances, and trade. 

These are the areas covered in Peña Nieto’s speech, as well as the issues underlying each one.

Read this article on The Christian Science Monitor.

World Politics Review | Fear of the Unknown as Mexico Awaits the Trump Era

Summary: On the morning after the U.S. election, the front pages of Mexican dailies responded to Donald Trump’s win with shock, and those fears aren’t unfounded. While it’s uncertain whether Trump will make good on his campaign promises, Mexico—and the U.S.—should brace themselves for the economic fallout.

MEXICO CITY — On the morning after the U.S. election, the front pages of Mexican dailies responded to Donald Trump’s win with shock. Given that Mexico found itself in Trump’s crosshairs throughout the race, Mexicans’ fears aren’t unfounded. But the U.S. president-elect might not be able to make good on every threat he made on the campaign trail. 

Consider the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Trump will face plenty of challenges to building the infamous wall that was a centerpiece of his candidacy. First off, physical obstacles abound, including the Algodones Sand Dunes in southern California; the Coronado National Forest in Arizona and New Mexico, home to 9,000-foot mountains; and, not least, the Rio Grande. Next are the legal barriers: Roughly two-thirds of the border area is private- or state-owned. Then there’s the price tag, which could be as high as $25 billion, and which the Mexican government says it won’t cover, despite Trump’s campaign assertions that he would go so far as to block remittances unless it does. That’s no small threat. Mexican immigrants sent over $20 billion home in the first nine months of 2016 alone. 

Read the full text of the article at World Politics Review or via AS/COA Online. 

World Politics Review | The Trump Effect: Why Mexico's Image Problem Spells Trouble for the U.S.

Summary: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has derided Mexico and Mexicans since his campaign began. His proposals are unfeasible and ignore the reality of robust and vital bilateral ties. For its part, Mexico has challenges that undermine its international image, but that's not the whole picture. 

During a June 30 campaign stop in New Hampshire, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump pointed to a plane flying overhead and quipped that it could be a Mexican aircraft “getting ready to attack.”

It’s not a small thing for the potential future U.S. president to casually suggest that neighboring Mexico is planning to launch an assault, given the close historical, security and commercial ties between the two countries. A third of U.S. territory used to belong to Mexico. Americans travel to Mexico more than any other foreign destination, and over twice as much as they do to Canada. Bilateral trade has hit more than $1.4 billion a day. The 2,000-mile border between the two is the world’s busiest, with 350 million people crossing—legally—each year. Even with that volume of people, there has not been one documented case of a terrorist getting into the United States from Mexico...

Read the full text of the essay at World Politics Review or via AS/COA Online. 

AS/COA Online | LatAm in Focus: Alejandro Hope on Drug Policy and Mexico's Marijuana Laws

Alejandro Hope, El Daily Post’s security editor, speaks with Carin Zissis about how national-level changes in drug policy in the Americas have an impact on global policy. He predicts a large portion of the legislation that underpins marijuana prohibition in Mexico today will eventually be declared unconstitutional.

“This region has been at the forefront of the reform process.” That’s what Alejandro Hope had to say about shifts toward more progressive drug policies in the Americas in recent years. Hope, a drug policy analyst and security editor at the Mexico City-based news site El Daily Post, spoke with AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis about what the region’s policy changes mean on a global scale as the UN prepares to host a special summit, known as UNGASS 2016, on the worldwide drug problem from April 19 to 21.

The General Assembly last held a special session in 2009 and another one wasn’t slated until 2019. But, in 2012, the presidents of Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, tired of drug war violence, called to hold the summit sooner. But just because some countries are looking for a new path doesn’t mean UNGASS 2016 will produce major results: even if Latin American countries want more open policies, other parts of the world—such as Asia and Russia—take a more conservative stance.

Still, changes taking place on a national level have an impact on global policy. Hope notes that marijuana legalization by particular U.S. states weakens the ability to enforce drug control treaties, leaving “a gaping hole in the system.”

Shifting U.S. marijuana policy also has a direct effect on Mexico, where the illicit marijuana export market is showing signs it’s contracting as eradication and seizures decline. There’s a political effect as well: it’s harder for Mexico to maintain marijuana prohibition when the United States doesn’t, explains Hope. A Mexican Supreme Court decision in November, while limited in scope, opened the door to more progressive policies. “Marijuana legalization used to be a fringe concern,” he says. “It’s now part of the mainstream conversation.”

And Hope predicts court decisions will keep chipping away at prohibition as cases arise, saying: “I would argue that a large portion of the legislation that underpins marijuana prohibition in Mexico will be declared unconstitutional.”

What does this mean for Mexico’s next presidential election and security policy overall? Listen to find out.