Nuevo León Governor Jaime “El Bronco” Rodríguez hopes some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Covid-related economic strategies will rub off on Mexican President López Obrador next month. 

“It is good that the president is going to the United States, because that will open up his vision, which unfortunately he does not have at the moment,” quipped Rodríguez in Tamaulipas at a meeting of governors from nine states. 

Rodríguez contrasted López Obrador’s economic plan, mainly focused on increased social aid, the delivery of small micro-credits and the construction of legacy projects such as the Maya Train, with that of the Trump administration.

The governor expressed support for employment subsidies in the United States where the government has invested up to 30% of its gross domestic product in creating jobs to stimulate economic recovery, something that is not happening in Mexico, he said

The meeting between the two presidents coincides with the entry in force of the new trade treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada on July 1, and it will be the Mexican president’s first trip abroad since taking office in 2018. 

Rodríguez urged the president to use the meeting with Trump to standardize the terms of the treaty in sectors such as agriculture, logistics and the production of goods destined for the United States. “Mexico has enormous opportunities to be productive, and we need to take advantage of them,” he said. 

Some of López Obrador’s critics are skeptical that the meeting will be beneficial for Mexico, where Trump is not generally well-liked, and did not mince words.

In a post to Twitter last week, the former Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhán, called the potential visit “a big blunder and a mistake,” saying that Trump would only use the Mexican president as an electoral prop. 

In an interview earlier this month Sarukhán called such a visit “suicidal for Mexico’s long-term and strategic relationship with the United States.”

Source: Político (sp), El Universal (sp)