His lame-duck reforms will hurt Mexicans, drive investment away and wreck relations with the U.S.
By
Mike Pompeo
June 20, 2024 at 5:35 pm ET
Outgoing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, June 14. PHOTO: LUIS BARRON/ZUMA PRESS
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.
Mexico’s lame-duck president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, seems intent on passing a series of “reforms” to eliminate independent regulators or merge their offices with executive-branch agencies. A clear violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, this would cripple investor confidence in the Mexican system. The flow of foreign direct investment from the U.S. would dry up.
AMLO’s reform package also goes after U.S. exports of genetically modified corn based on unscientific criteria that clearly violate USMCA rules. Most troubling for foreign investors: A proposal that all federal and local judges in Mexico, including the Supreme Court, be elected by popular vote. That’s game over for judicial recourse in Mexico if a foreign investor has a dispute with a powerful political actor or interest. Given that the USMCA is up for a mandatory review in all three nations in 2026, these ill-conceived proposals by the Mexican government could spell disaster for the future of the agreement. The USMCA is critical to American jobs. Were it to be obliterated, the single biggest beneficiary would be communist China.
The U.S. has historically had to deal with waves of Mexican migrants crossing the border. Mexico was one of the largest sources of migrants to the U.S. in the 20th century. In recent years, the numbers have slowed as a result of actions taken by the Mexican government to develop independent institutions and regulators that combat corruption. An independent electoral authority was empowered to oversee elections. The Mexican people have benefited tremendously from the greater economic growth, foreign investment and opportunities that resulted from these changes. AMLO’s increasingly radical policies now threaten to reverse this trend. Mexican arrivals at the U.S. border are already ticking up after hitting a many-decades low in 2019.
The judicial reform proposal would also undercut key U.S. efforts in Mexico. Since 2008, when funds began to flow to the Merida Initiative, a first-of-its-kind bilateral security program to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, the U.S. has invested billions to build an independent and competent judicial branch in Mexico. The hope was to increase prosecution rates, strengthen the rule of law and hold organized crime to account. AMLO’s plan to have judges elected would toss away almost two decades of progress with the stroke of a pen. It also wouldn’t work: Organized crime controls roughly a third of Mexico’s territory, and a record number of candidates were murdered in the course of the most recent elections. The notion that Mexico can maintain an independent judicial branch by having its judges elected at all levels is absurd and deeply dangerous.
AMLO’s reforms also seek to empower the Mexican military by assigning the National Guard to the secretary of national defense, which would add layers of complexity for U.S. agencies working with Mexican civilian agencies on immigration, narcotics and counterterrorism operations. The Mexican National Guard is a federal agency under civilian control, and it plays a key role in immigration enforcement. Following the Cuban model, AMLO has already given the Mexican military airlines, hotels, ports and airports to run. It even operates a tourist train. Now he wants to give it domestic law-enforcement authority as well. AMLO hopes to ensure that no Mexican agencies cooperate with U.S. agencies outside a single chain of command.
Mexican voters recently gave President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum a broad mandate. It’s hard to believe that her predecessor’s party wishes to put the country on a path toward economic stagnation before she even takes the oath of office. The U.S. is Mexico’s top trade partner and the largest recipient of Mexican exports. American companies are the largest foreign investors in Mexico. AMLO’s reforms would hurt the Mexican and American people alike. The Mexican people, led by Ms. Sheinbaum, must step in now to change this course for their country, and the Biden administration must defend U.S. interests by helping them do so.
Mr. Pompeo served as secretary of state, 2018-21
Source: Wall Street Journal
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