Mexico: Negative Visions

The upcoming presidential election in the United States on Nov. 5 may fortify a negative outlook of our nation

The United States’ vision of Mexico ranges from the catastrophic view of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in his quest to be Donald Trump’s vice president to the qualified sense of a democracy in regression lucky to have a transactional relationship with the U.S., according to Fareed Zakaria, an influential international relations expert.

In view of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s election on Oct. 1 and the reforms that the outgoing regime proposed during the month of September, skepticism seems to prevail.

In both views, Mexico is a country of enormous importance to the United States. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Pompeo said, “expected constitutional and political changes in Mexico will upend the bilateral relationship with the U.S., causing chaos at the border and likely kicking off a trade war. The result will be economic stagnation in Mexico. Only the cartels pushing poison into both nations will benefit.”

In his one-hour show on CNN Sunday, Zakaria observed that “Under Trump and Biden, Washington has had a transactional relationship with Mexico, helped us with drugs and immigration, and mostly with immigration. And we will not pressure them on the regression of democracy and the rule of law in Mexico.

The result has been that the country is transforming into an illiberal democracy with a new one-party state, which is turning its back on many of the reforms that have modernized its economy and society over the past four decades.”*

It is true that both visions are, whether they like it or not, influenced by U.S. political rhetoric currently focused on border issues, but also influenced by a different vision of Mexico that the 4th Transformation wishes to present. Zakaria says that an important point is that for Pompeo, the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “seems intent on passing a series of ‘reforms’ to eliminate independent regulators or merge their offices with executive-branch agencies.”

Most worrisome for foreign investors, according to that text, is a proposal that all federal and local judges in Mexico, including the Supreme Court, be elected by popular vote. Gone is the game of judicial recourse in Mexico if a foreign investor has a dispute with a powerful political actor or interest.

Given that the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement is due for mandatory review in all three countries in 2026, these ill-conceived proposals could spell disaster for the agreement. The USMCA is critical to U.S. jobs. If it were repealed, the biggest beneficiary would be China.

For Zakaria, the real tragedy is that “we see on both sides of the border narrow selfish interests and short-term policies,”* although a long-term vision should be the strategic goal for both nations.

Worse yet, the upcoming U.S. election may fortify a negative view of Mexico.