Almost two years after taking office in December 2018, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, has struggled to make good on his campaign promises to deliver radical transformation, including tackling corruption and reforming the country’s drug war. Meanwhile, he has often found himself playing catchup to U.S. President Donald Trump, whose quixotic threats linking trade and immigration forced AMLO’s hand when it comes to Mexico’s efforts to block immigrants from crossing into the United States.
Trump did not entirely upend AMLO’s agenda. The Mexican leader has taken steps to rethink Mexico’s drug war, including seeking to redirect the Merida Initiative—a $3 billion annual U.S. aid package that pays for Mexico’s drug war—to use the money for development, while also calling for the decriminalization of all drugs in Mexico. But from cracking down on migrants passing through Mexico on their way north to successfully renegotiating the updated NAFTA trade deal, AMLO’s presidency has in many ways been inextricably linked to Trump. The surprisingly amicable ties he developed with his American counterpart, despite their many differences, now has many observers wondering whether AMLO will pay a political cost under the incoming Biden administration.
AMLO remains broadly popular in Mexico. His pledges to reduce inequality are hailed, even as uncertainty surrounds some of his economic policy proposals. Though he has made efforts to reassure the private sector, he has also called for greater state intervention in the economy, deviating from the open market trajectory of his predecessors. Concern over AMLO’s management of the economy was exacerbated by the public and acrimonious resignation of his respected finance minister in July 2019. More recently, AMLO has been criticized for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic—or rather his lack of response, but so far it has not put a significant dent in his approval ratings.
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