Why Did AMLO Wait So Long To Recognize Biden Victory?
Why Did AMLO Wait So Long To Recognize Biden Victory?
I do not know, but it is on the surface at least surprising.
AMLO is the nickname of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the President of Mexico since Dec. 1, 2018. Only yesterday, along with Mitch McConnell, President Putin of Russia and President Bolsonaro of Brazil, AMLO congratulated Joe Biden on his victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential eleciton, leaving only North Korea’s Kim Jong Un still not recognizing Biden’s victory among world leaders. Putin and Bolsonaro and Kim have all been personally close to Trump, with Bolsonaro also imitating him in terms of policy positions. But what is with the delay by AMLO, especially given that polls have long shown Trump having the lowest popularity rating in Mexico of any nation in the world, down around 5%?
Besides Trump’s massive unpopularity there are other reasons one might not expect this delay on AMLO’s part. One is ideological, although Kim Jong Un is a left wing Communist supporting Trump. But indeed, even though he started out in the centrist PRI, AMLO has long been identified as the leading left progressive figure in Mexican politics, running as the presidential candidate of the main leftist party, the PRD, in 2006 and 2012 (Mexican presidents serves single six year terms), then starting his own party, MORENA, which he ran from successfully in 2018, although in that year he did have the support of a minor socially conservative party.
There is also the matter that there have long been differences over migration policy, with Trump’s anti-Mexican immigration policy extremely unpopular in Mexico, along with his wall, and certainly his ridiculous demand that Mexico pay his wall on the southern border. Trump even threatened AMLO with punitive tariffs if he did not help Trump out in slowing migration from Central America, and AMLO caved and went along with Trump’s demands on that.
There have also been differences over joint operations against drug gangs and corruption, with the recent arrest in the US on drug-related charges of a former Mexican defense minister, Cienfuegos, creating a diplomatic hullabaloo. Even though the US ended up dropping the charges and releasing Cienfuegos, the reaction in Mexico has been to pass a bill that makes it much harder for there to be any cooperation on drug enforcement, with Mexican police/authorities needing official permission to cooperate with any foreign enforcement officials, with US officials saying this will severely hinder any such cooperation in the future, a great present for the incoming Biden admin.
One theory is that AMLO has been afraid of Trump since his nasty tariff threat and was trying to keep on his good side, at least until the electoral college voted, even if he really did not foresee that Trump would fail in his efforts to overturn the election result. Another is that somehow he is stupid and actually thought Trump would succeed in overturning the election result. I doubt this, but in his first presidential election in 2006 when he narrowly lost to PAN’s Calderon he contested the election result for a long time afterward, although without success.
I see two other reasons for this. One has to do with the renegotiation of the former NAFTA, which is now officially in place as USMCA. This may be tied to the negative of AMLO not wanting to anger Trump and have him impose new tariffs. Trump is proud of USMCA and, of course, denounced NAFTA as “the worst trade deal ever,” although I think he said that about some others also. In any case, most observers see few differences between the two, most of them items that are in the TPP that Mexico (and also Canada) agreed to for being in that agreement, which they are, unlike the US. So no big deal agreeing to those items with the US, some of which amounted to modernizations. The only other item that affected Mexico could be viewed as a mixed bag for Mexico, Trump’s demand on higher wages for Mexican autoworkers. This looks like a loss to the extent jobs are lost but a gain to the extent higher wages actually get paid to workers who do not lose their jobs.
The other item is something less admirable, and something AMLO may well share with both Trump and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism. Even if it does not go that far, supposedly AMLO and Trump have hit it off personally. Indeed, AMLO actually visited Washington in September in the middle of the campaign, something he got criticized for in Mexico. I do not know what his personal relationship is with Biden, if any, but it is clear that he feels this personal connection, with it possibly boding ill for Mexico in the future if AMLO decides to pursue this authoritarian streak more fully.
The part that really is a bit mysterious, and has also brought criticism in Mexico, is what did he think he was doing in terms of relations with the incoming Biden administration? Most think that Putin has not helped himself with Biden by delaying recognizing the obvious, and we know that Bolsonaro is kind of a wacko as well as out there ideologically. But I would think that AMLO would want good relations with Biden, and I think he is smart enough to have known after the outcome was declared that indeed Biden had won and would be coming into office. Unless somehow he actually dislikes Biden personally, which I have not heard, the only way this delay makes sense is if he thinks somehow it gives him leverage by showing “independence,” which is also coming with this new bill on cutting back drug enforcement cooperation, although I do not see how AMLO gains from such a lack of cooperation. Maybe he will gain this, but my own view is that I think AMLO has made an error here, and he is going to have to do some adjusting down the road, preferably sooner rather than later.
Barkley Rosser
The other item is something less admirable, and something AMLO may well share with both Trump and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism….
[ An offensive, shameful sentence. Yuck! ]
and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism….[ An offensive, shameful sentence. Yuck! ]”~~anne~second the motion! that’s a good point. you can’t really tell what the personality behind the rhetoric is. the overnight increment of Covid-19 cases is now 247k. things are going to get worse before they get better; but what kind of Bill do we need from Congress now? we need something that is efficient. each bill that comes out of Capitol Hill is more than zero sum; it is a negative sum when you factor in the overhead of these projects. if we have for example, check’s in the mail for every citizen, an equal amount of money for each of us, this will include extra overhead. When we send out checks to wealthy people and then tax the wealthy people for the cost of the checks that’s overhead but still cheaper than setting up a gigantic bureaucratic system to determine who is wealthy and who is poor and who should get a check and who shouldn’t. Checks to each citizen is the most efficient Keynesian transfer payment we can afford. All of their other pork/barrel is expensive inefficient cruft that merely weakens our Pentagon, weakens our economy, retards our recovery. Congress should make the checks larger, but delete all the earmarks! Do it for Harvard, do it for our Pentagon!
To both of you, sorry, but bs, although I grant that I cannot know for certain what somebody’s personality really is.
But on Bolsonaro, while he has not moved vigorously towards authoritatianism, he has praised the past military dictatorships in Brazil, and he has certainly been totally sycophantic towards Trump.
I have checked on AMLO, and I suggest anybody who doubts this should google “Lopez Obrador possibly authoritarian,” and you will find lots of hits from many sources with a wide variety of views ranging from the Guardian to the Cato Insittute and many in-between. Starting in April, 2019, AMLO moved to remove longstandign limitts on centralized power in Mexico, leading initially to accusations of authoritarianism on his part by his old party, the leftist PRD. OK, they are sour grapes whining, but other reports cite current supporters, and the most recent report on this was less than a month ago, Nov. 24. This is a widely reported and observed thing, so claims that this is “shameful” or offensive” have no credivbility, unless perhaps it would be “shameful” to call people like Putin and Kim Jong Un “authoritarian,” and also note I only claimed that he “may” have” a “tendency” in that direction, which a lot of people are saying.
As it is, given that it does not at all seem really to be in the national interest of Mexico to alienate and offend (speaking of being offensive) the incoming POTUS, one is left with wondering why he did this unwise thing, and it seems that it at least partly involves a personal affinity, and one has to look very hard to find any foreign leaders who get along with Trump who are not obviously authoritatian, maybe Boris Johnson?
I hope AMLO’s tendency remains not fully acted on, but it does seem to be there, which is worrying, as I said. Let us hope he does not imitate his pal, Trump, by refusing to step aside in four years when his non-renewable term comes to an end.
Sorry, folks, I am not buying any of this.
Bolsonaro may not have gone full force authoritarian, but he has praised past military dictatorships in Brazil. He clearly has the tendency.
As for AMLO, t was actually holding back by saying that he “may” have a “tendency” towards authoritarianism. In fact he has been widely accused of it by people from across the political spectrum in Mexico, notably starting in April, 2019, when he made moves to undo limits on central government power in Mexico, and the criticisms have continued, reported in outlets including Reuters, Guardian, WaPo, New Republic, and others, with his own supporters raising concerns and the most recent article on this less than a month ago on Nov. 24. I suggest anybody who doubts this, just google “Lopez Obrador possible authoritarian.” Lots of hits.
A sign of it I have long been aware of dates to the 2006 election I reported on when he refused to accept the outcome for a long time. He might have had grounds because most think the 1988 election was stolen from an earlier PRD prez candidate, Cardenas. But that was when the PRI ran everything in Mexico, which was no longer the case in 2006, It was fairly close, but he also clearly lost. But this certainly makes it understandable that he might sympathize with Trump when Trump refuses to accept his clear defeat.
This really has not been in the Mexican national interest, and finally somebody has gotten to him that he should not be angering the incoming POTUS. I just hope he does step aside in four years when his non-renewable term comes to its end.
he other item is something less admirable, and something AMLO may well share with both Trump and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism….
[ Revealing the voice of imperialism, wildly offensive. I do understand though, always have. ]
Adding the missing letter:
“The other item…”
Yuck!
Anne,
I did not bring it up, but since you drag in imperialism another aspect that is really disturbing is that AMLO seems somehow to be completely kowtowing to the worst imperialist and racist policies we have seen out of the US towards Mexico in a very long time, so long that I think one may have to go back over a century to see such outbreak. The Mexican War was worse, and the period of the Diaz dictatorship involved a deeply entrenched imperialist policy, although one that involved Diaz maintaining authoritarian power, possibly somewhat of a parallel to what seems to have gone on recently.
So we have a president who started his campaign by describing Mexicans as “rapists,” with a massive campaign against immigrants from Mexico one of the most important centerpieces of his campaign, marked by the ridiculous promise to make Mexico pay for his ridiculous wall, although, of course, that particular nonsense went nowhere.
We had Trump massively lying about NAFTA, with his claim that it was the “worst trade deal ever.” As it is, Mexico did not do as well out of that deal as many thought it might, but in fact on net it did gain from it.
We then have the outrageous imposition of massive tariffs on Mexico by Trump as he demanded Mexico overturn long-in-place laws and policies regarding people transiting Mexico from Central America to enter the US, indeed the most blatantly imperialist action by a US government against Mexico since at least the Diaz ere before 1910, if not since the Mexican War.
You have the gall to claim that I am expressing “imperialist” comments in my post, but go read it again, please. I put all this in my post, although I did not use the word “imperialism.” But I thought that this was so blatanttly obvious it did not need to be said.
So here we have a supposedly progressive and nationalist Mexican president, and what does he do? Well, unsurprisingly he caves on the tariff pressure to change Mexican policies on Central American migrants. I think the USMCA outcome was not too bad for Mexico, but the whole thing was pretty much unnecessary. But somehow AMLO seems to fall in love with this imperialist and racist US president.
I made an effort to understand why he seems to have done so. Do you have an explanation for his bizarre behavior that pretty clearly was not in the national interests of Mexico. What is it, Anne? If you are going to make this accusation, then, please, what is the explanation?
I also frankly challenge you to show that all these people charging AMLO with authoritarian tendencies are imperialist. Most of them are from Mexico, with most of them in fact on the left. These people are US imperialists? How completely off-the-wall have you become? This is totally ridiculous. Are you going to start arguing that Trump really won the election and it was deeply wise of AMLO to support Trump’s efforts as long as he did?
Please, you are not making a shred of sense here, not a sense, not to mention that your comments are offensive, as well as being flagrantly false.
Since the initial essay and comments took considerable effort, I read and reread all carefully. The only interest I can find is a need to demean and discredit a truly liberal, truly economic reform minded Mexican president. Mexico has struggled economically these last 30 years, but Mexican and especially American conservatives are unconcerned. Mexico’s president understand the need for structural economic change.
This is Wall Street Journal opinion page sort of stuff.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRtJAugust 4, 2014Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and United States, 1992-2019(Percent change)https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRtvAugust 4, 2014Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and United States, 1992-2019(Indexed to 1992)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRv7August 4, 2014Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico as a percent of Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States & Exports of Goods and Services by Mexico as a percent of Gross Domestic Product, 1992-2019(Indexed to 1992)https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRvcAugust 4, 2014Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico as a percent of Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States & Exports of Goods and Services by Mexico as a percent of Gross Domestic Product, 1992-2019(Indexed to 1992)
There we find the unfortunate result of increasing trade with the United States since 1992 while Mexico has actually lagged far behind the US in per capita growth since 1992.
Sorry, I somehow spaced improperly though I was careful. The links to and descriptions of the graphs are unreadable. Sorry.
“The other item is something less admirable, and something AMLO may well share with both Trump and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism….”
“Please, you are not making a shred of sense here, not a sense, not to mention that your comments are offensive, as well as being flagrantly false.”
Of course my comments were correct and perfectly in keeping with the meanness of the posts, but I am so so sorry to have ruffled feathers anyway.
Forgive me for the feather ruffling.
The other item is something less admirable, and something AMLO may well share with both Trump and Bolsonaro, a certain egomaniacal tendency to authoritarianism….
[ Yes, trying to ruin a Mexican president and so ruin a plan for sorely needed Mexican development. I do understand. ]
Trying the graphs again –
What the president of Mexico is about is trying to grow the economy of 20 years of woeful growth. I am uninterested in demeaning the president for such concern:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRtJ
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and United States, 1992-2019
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRtv
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and United States, 1992-2019
(Indexed to 1992)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRv7
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico as a percent of Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States & Exports of Goods and Services by Mexico as a percent of Gross Domestic Product, 1992-2019
(Indexed to 1992)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=yRvc
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico as a percent of Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States & Exports of Goods and Services by Mexico as a percent of Gross Domestic Product, 1992-2019
(Indexed to 1992)
There we find the unfortunate result of increasing trade with the United States since 1992 while Mexico has actually lagged far behind the US in per capita growth since 1992.
Sorry, I just do not know how to post graphs properly.
I am sorry to have ruined the thread with the botched attempt to post links to authoritative and important graphs. I should not even have tried to post initially. I will not try again.
Thank you for all the consideration and patience.
anne:
Your attempts tells us what we need to do. No need to be sorry and you did not ruin anything. We will ask why commenters should not be able to post images even if in a simple C & P manner. I hope others test the system too. We are happy to have you here.
Anne,
Just a few more comments from me, which will basically repeat some of what I have just put on Econospeak in response to “Anonymous,” who has been making essentially identical points there that you have been making here.
One is that while it is true that Mexico’s GDP growth since NAFTA was adopted has been slower than the US’s, it has been faster than Mexico’s was for the previous decade and a half. The most damage NAFTA did in Mexico was early on in its traditional and poor maise producing sector, which triggered a mass migration off those farms, with some of those people going to the US. NAFTA had been popular in recent years across most of the Mexican political spectrum, and USMCA is only slightly different from it.
The US has had a much more imperialist relation with the Philippines than with Mexico, but you do not seem to have been offended by my mentioning Duterte as an authoritarian and murderous friend of Trump’s. Mexico has long had strong political independence from the US in many ways, although as dictator Porfrrio Diaz in 1900 famously remarked, “Poor Mexico, so far from God, yet so close to the United States.”
Regarding AMLO’s possible egotism, I note that he has yet to accept that he lost the 2006 election, although there was a recount of 10% of the ballots showing little change. His political party moved on after Calderon was sworn in, but he never did, which is certainly at least partly why he was so willing to effectively support Trump’s false claims about our presidential election outcome. Even if AMLO is not in the least authoritarian or egomaniacal, it remains somewhat mysterious why he would do something so unwise (and also unpopular in Mexico) as what he pulled in so delaying his recognition of the victory of the next POTUS. Why do you think he did it?
Certainly the progressive Mexicans I spoke with while spending the first two weeks of March 2019 in Oaxaca regarded AMLO as authoritarian, and called him Trump-like in being both authoritarian and inclined to doggedly pursue his own ideas, regardless of their rationality or level of political support.
I heard a lot of disappointment in him on those grounds, as well as on his austerity-based cuts to public budgets, dismissal of the femicides and – later, once I was home – head in the sand attitude toward the coronavirus.
Should have said that those critiques of AMLO were echoed in the Mexican press that I saw, as well.
Oops, it was the first two weeks of March 2020 that I was in Oaxaca – it just seems like we’ve been locked down for nearly 2 years, if not 10…