Presidents find a distraction while their countries are in crisis

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July 15, 2020

lopez obrador and donald trump — Best friends forever?

Back in 2017 I bought a nice, large, tempered glass desk — the kind that looks like it’s tinted that light mint-green color from the edges. By mid-2018, I’d decided that the room I had it in was actually too pretty to be an office and that it should be my bedroom instead, so I decided to switch out the furniture between the two rooms.

The rooms were separated by half a flight of stairs, and the desk was much heavier than I really should have tried carrying on my own. I could barely move it, but as often happens when I decide to make changes to my home, I was determined to finish what I’d started, and immediately.

About half-way up the steps, the desk shattered. I hadn’t knocked it against anything; it didn’t break from force. It just seemed to suddenly disintegrate in my hands, taking a full three seconds for all of the pieces to fully rain down onto the flight and a half of stairs below.

Reading about tempered glass later, I realized it had broken from strain. It didn’t need a hammer to fall on it or to have it slammed against a wall. It was much more delicate than it looked, with a surprisingly low tolerance for the kind of subtle movements that happen when you grab onto something large only from the middle of it.

I tell this story because it feels (both now and when it happened, which was a deeply sad and rough time in my life) like both a metaphor and an omen. Our world feels like it’s at that very point right before the gigantic pane of glass shatters and falls onto the ground in a million tiny pieces. Maybe we’re already in those three seconds where it’s all in the process of raining down.

And what do our presidents do while this is happening? I mean aside from playing down the seriousness of both the break and its effects, that is.

They meet to celebrate a new trade deal as if our economy, not to mention our lives, weren’t rushing to the ground in sharp fragments all around us.

If there were ever a time that we could accuse our leaders of sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to face society’s problems, it’s now.

As anyone who’s been following the news knows, last week President López Obrador traveled to the United States to meet with President Trump. The point of the meeting, they said, was to celebrate the new trade deal among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, with his flawless social graces and penchant for setting quiet examples for his own citizens, smartly backed out early on with talk of important previous engagements. (As a side note, I’d like to thank you, PM Trudeau, for taking that jab at Trump by implying you had something more important to do than hang out with him; truly, it’s appreciated.)

In his absence, the two men who see themselves as the victimiest victims of the media in the world got together for a celebration. And guess what? They’re BFFs now.

I suppose at this point I shouldn’t be surprised. Though they’re ideologically at opposite ends of the spectrum, they both love political showmanship and grand announcements about how great everything is as a result of their “excellent leadership.”

AMLO has been accused of unfairly helping Trump in the wake of an upcoming election. While I think this may indeed wind up as a latent function of his visit, I very much doubt that it was an explicit purpose.

There were also plenty of complaints from both ends of the political spectrum here in Mexico (worryingly, everyone who publicly criticized his visit was immediately designated as “our opposition,” giving further evidence to the fact that AMLO considers anyone who disagrees with a decision he’s made as an enemy — remind you of anyone?) Critics accused López Obrador of prostrating himself before a man who has hurt not just our feelings and pride, but many of our people on “his” side of the border.

After all, Mexico essentially changed its entire security policy in order to become Trump’s wall, causing an increasingly precarious humanitarian crisis on our side of the border.

So why did he go?

Well, it’s probably just smart politics at least to pretend to be friends with an all-powerful bully who can really hurt you if he decides to, and Trump has proven his ability to do so to pretty much every vulnerable group of people out there. Still, I think recent history has proven that a previous friendship with Trump is absolutely no guarantee of safety from his easily-released wrath. Why, just ask Reince Priebus. Or Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Or Steve Bannon. I could use up the rest of my space here on a complete list, but it hardly seems worthwhile.

It was also a smart(-ish), albeit obvious, political distraction for both of them: the coronavirus is swallowing both people and livelihoods whole on both sides of the border with no end is sight. We were facing plenty of crises each even before the pandemic hit, and those problems, while coming in and out of focus occasionally, haven’t even nearly disappeared.

Is anyone really thinking about trade right now? Never mind that our economies will be unrecognizable by the time this is over anyway. Our world is literally falling apart; our economies and the hard-won living standards that so many have only recently achieved are disintegrating before our eyes.

Mr. Presidents, not even the two of you can spend your days walking over tiny shards of glass as if they weren’t there. It’s time to get to work for real. Please.

Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.

Has the ubiquitous cheek kiss been lost to the coronavirus?

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Lydia Carey

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July 15, 2020

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Before coronavirus, the cheek kiss was an integral aspect of Mexican social life. — Before Covid-19, the cheek kiss was an integral aspect of Mexican social life. online for love

I’ve kissed thousands of cheeks since I moved to Mexico 13 years ago. I’ve also had more than one disaster.

Working in a small, rural community outside San Miguel de Allende, I once watched a weathered farmer eye me with horror as I went in for it. I’ve brushed lips with strangers and colleagues alike in blundered attempts to hug and not kiss, or kiss and not hug.

More than once a little extra lip pressure from an attractive friend of a friend at the bar made my inebriated mind run wild with visions of our future passion.

And the obligation of it all! Everyone in the room has to be kissed hello and kissed goodbye. It’s often made me wish that I could just scrap the cheek kiss altogether. Despite my love for Mexico City’s touchy-feely freedom — metro make-outs, spontaneous dirty dancing, park bench snuggling — the cheek kiss has never been something I waxed nostalgic about.

But recently, the enforced social distancing put in place to deal with the Covid virus has elicited a strange response in my body. Upon seeing people I know I find I take an instinctive lunge forward, my hands starting to rise to mid-bicep, my head inclining forward, lips poised for a brush on the cheek.

cheek kissing — Will such intimacies return when the pandemic is over?

I stop myself, as the responsibly paranoid citizen I’ve become in the past five months, but an odd feeling lingers. Something unsaid, something undone. Conversations have no beginning and no end, deep within I’m uncomfortable, itchy. After almost a decade and a half this particular habit has become so ingrained in my social interactions that my body responds without guidance; I guess you’d call it natural.

They say that the cheek kiss started with the Romans, a passionate bunch that not surprisingly spread the salutation wherever they went. While it might seem like a perfunctory gesture, search the internet and you will find hundreds of articles named things like “To Kiss or not to Kiss,” with charts explaining each kissing country’s specific kissing parameters.

There have been entire books written on the history, meaning, and tradition of the cheek kiss. Its appropriate delivery can make or break first dates and business deals. The 14^th-century plague reportedly put a pause on kissing for a while, but it came back with a vengeance after the First World War and has been going strong since. So while U.S. writers are ready to dig the handshake’s grave, I ask myself, is it really possible that the cheek kiss will be so easily banished?

The fear of losing this and other intimacies is very much alive in my neighborhood. Every Saturday in front of my apartment in Mexico City the local soccer team drinks themselves happy at the convenience store. Handfuls of guys in gym shorts and long socks sip beers, make jokes, and even sing opera from time to time. I can hear the timbre of their laughter and the thud of palms against backs from my upstairs window.

I admit I don’t always share the joy of their weekly sidewalk party, but most of the time their presence is soothing. People are on the street, life is happening. These past Saturdays have been silent, the taco stand next door that houses half of the group at a time has been closed for months. Many are likely kept home by wise wives. Their missing presence in the soundscape feels ominous.

That goes for the coffee shop kids too, who a few storefronts down huddle around cold brews and Japanese siphons, telling high-decibel stories to hide the insecurity of their gangly bodies and over-caffeinated hands. They are gone too, replaced by a single nerdy barista serving coffee to go from behind a wooden barrier. The street that used to be so lively is as quiet as a three-day weekend.

kissing with face masks — The new normal.

In Mexico life is lived in the street. As one friend puts it, “we were taught to live outside, not inside.” And the country’s publicness – kissing in the park, eating on the street, and sitting down beside a neighbor to share a smoke or gossip – doesn’t exactly fit with the new restrictions in our lives. How does a city of more than 28 million people socially distance from one another? Do we even want to?

Life on the street keeps you informed about what is happening, who’s sick, who has a new baby. Plenty of the neighbors don’t even know each other’s names but we recognize each other by face, and now even that is harder to do. “I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t see people smile,” one of my neighbors tells me on a recent morning.

Mexico’s president got a lot of negative press at the beginning of the pandemic for hugging and kissing his supporters at public events. He said he wanted to put them at ease, let them know that everything was fine, but honestly, I think maybe he just couldn’t help himself. Our everyday norms are just powerful.

So while we’ve nothing to do but move forward, with our ghost gestures, like ghost limbs, haunting us in conversations, we wonder will the little intimacies of our lives return once the pandemic has passed? Or will we know them simply as things from the time before?

I think we are all envisioning a day when we will be able look at each other without cloth barriers, and astonishingly enough, I’m even hoping for a return of the cheek kiss.

Lydia Carey is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.

‘New normal’ coming to Mexico’s beaches with new rules

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MND Staff

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July 15, 2020

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Under new beach rules, they're too close for comfort.

A “new normal” is coming soon to Mexico’s beaches courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.

By next week at the latest, federal authorities will publish new rules on the use of beaches aimed at reducing the risk of the coronavirus spreading among people enjoying the sand and surf along Mexico’s extensive coastline.

State and municipal governments will be required to enforce the rules for the foreseeable future regardless of the local coronavirus situation.

The director of Zofematac, the federal office of maritime land zones and coastal environments, told the newspaper Milenio that a new beach use agreement will be published shortly.

Rodrigo Hernández Aguilar said the emphasis will be on social distancing among beachgoers – people shouldn’t come within four meters of others while on the sand or in the water.

He said people will not be required to wear face masks while they’re on the sand or in the water but they will have to wear them at beach entry points and in any common areas such as public washrooms.

“The use of face masks is mandated to arrive at the beach because there could be crowds when you’re entering the beach, you might be leaving a hotel where there are people or traveling on public transit. That’s why you use [a face mask] when you arrive and go onto the beach and also when you leave. Once you’re on the beach you don’t need to use it,” Hernández said.

He said that authorities decided not to make face masks mandatory on beaches because there is scientific evidence that salty water, sunlight and high temperatures “are favorable for the inactivation of pathogenic agents.”

The new beach rules will establish a limit of 40 people per 1,000 square meters of beach space. On beaches that are part of hotel precincts, staff will be required to disinfect hammocks and deck chairs after beachgoers vacate them, Hernández said.

Beachgoers will be required to place towels over the latter before they use them, he added.

Hernández said that all group recreational and sporting activities will be banned on beaches and that only 15 people will be allowed in the water at the same time. People should visit the beach on their own, with their partner or in small family units, not large groups, he said.

The Zofematac chief also said that under the new agreement, municipal governments will be able to take bookings from people who wish to go to the beach. Hernández added that beachgoers who flout the new regulations could be fined or even arrested.

To draw up the new rules, authorities looked at what their counterparts in four European countries have done, he said.

“We gave ourselves the task of studying what France, Spain, Italy and Greece did, which were the most advanced [countries] … in separating [people on] beaches.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Saturated hospitals trigger tougher measures in Yucatán

By

Susy Buchanan

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July 15, 2020

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Coronavirus case numbers are putting pressure on hospitals.

With hospital beds filling up due to the rising number of confirmed coronavirus cases, Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal announced a return to coronavirus restrictions yesterday to help prevent the spread of the disease and avoid a collapse of the state’s health care system.

As of Tuesday night, the dry law has been reinstated and the sale of alcohol is banned throughout Yucatán.

Beginning Thursday, residents are asked to stay off the roads from 10:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. In coastal communities, the curfew will take effect at 9 p.m.

Non-essential businesses must close by 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and are not permitted to open on the weekends.

Restaurants are required to close at 10 p.m. and can only offer take-out and delivery meals on Saturdays and Sundays.

Marinas have been closed and recreational boating is prohibited.

More restrictions may be put in place if coronavirus numbers don’t show improvement, the governor warned. “We do not rule out additional measures in the coming days.”

The number of patients with the coronavirus is straining hospitals to the breaking point, and two temporary hospitals have been set up.

One is located in the Mérida convention center with 490 beds, and a 100-bed hospital has been erected on land belonging to the general hospital in Valladolid. The governor is asking 3,000 health workers deemed to be at high risk for the coronavirus due to preexisting conditions to return to work.

Vila warned that by setting up the provisional hospitals, reserves are simply running out.

“The launch of these two temporary hospitals means that we are already using our strategic reserve of beds and equipment planned with due anticipation in the face of the coronavirus contingency,” he said.

“It will not be possible to enable more beds since Yucatán medical personnel are already working practically in their entirety,” he warned, calling on citizens to take the pandemic seriously.

“Many have confused economic reactivation with the reactivation of their social life. If at this time social life is not minimized, we will be forced to close all non-essential businesses and everyone will return to quarantine in their homes,” he cautioned.

“This is a very important moment in the evolution of the contingency because it tests our social and individual responsibility. Acting irresponsibly can have deadly consequences.”

As of Tuesday, Yucatán had 6,584 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and had seen 604 deaths.

Source: Reforma (sp), Diario de Yucatán (sp)

Angry relatives go after Michoacán doctor after patient dies

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Susy Buchanan

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July 15, 2020

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Salvador Jasso relates the story of the attack.

A young orthodontist in Paracho, Michoacán, was beaten and forced to flee his home on Monday after being attacked by a group of men who believed his father, a doctor, had caused the death of a man believed to have been infected with the coronavirus.

In a video making the rounds on social media, Salvador Jasso, a recent dental school graduate, detailed the events that forced him and his family to leave their home in the town of Ahuirán.

In the video, filmed while the visibly upset and bruised young man was driving, Jasso narrates what took place. “Today we are fleeing from Paracho. They beat us, and we had to see how such a noble profession of being a doctor has become a crime in this fucking country,” Jasso said.

Fifteen to 20 hooded men came to his door demanding to see his father. Jasso told the men, who he says appeared drunk, that his father was not home and would be back in 40 minutes.

“As I see that they are beginning to get aggressive, I close the door. They pull me, they start hitting me, they literally kidnapped me, they wanted to kidnap me and wouldn’t let me go until Dr. Jasso arrived,” he said.

Earlier that morning his father had treated a patient with low blood oxygen levels who was suffering from atypical pneumonia. Jasso’s father injected the patient with dexamethasone, a corticosteroid meant to reduce pulmonary inflammation, and sent him to the hospital. Shortly thereafter, the man died and his family and friends were enraged. “… my father supposedly injected him with something to make him die,” Jasso said.

Michoacán Government Secretary Carlos Herrera Tello said the state Attorney General’s Office is investigating and that those responsible for attacking Jasso will not go unpunished. Until then, he offered the family protection from future attacks.

“In no way are we going to allow that violence to occur,” Herrera said. “The investigation is underway, and I am sure that very soon there will be clarity, and we will find those responsible …”

“My father puts himself at risk and puts his family at risk just to exercise his profession and look at what has happened to us,” Jasso said. “You tell me if this isn’t a really stupid act by ignorant people,” he added, touching the wounds to his face.

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

Border travel restrictions may be extended to August 21

By

Susy Buchanan

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July 15, 2020

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Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it has proposed extending restrictions on non-essential travel between Mexico and the United States until August 21.

The restrictions, which apply to the land border only and do not affect air travel between the countries, have been in force for nearly four months.

On its official Twitter page, the Foreign Ministry proposed that “the restrictions will remain in the same terms in which they have been developed since their implementation on March 21. Both countries will continue to seek to coordinate health measures in the border region.”

The United States has yet to announce an extension of border restrictions; the decision lies in the hands of officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

People who have temporary work visas, emergency personnel, students, government officials, flight crews and those involved in cross-border trade are still allowed entry under the terms of the current restrictions. Travel for leisure, tourism or recreation is prohibited.

According to the most recent data available, the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have a combined total of 764,996 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. On the south side of the border, the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas have a total of 55,083 cases.

On July 2, United States Ambassador Christopher Landau asked U.S. citizens to respect the restrictions put in place.

“Attention U.S. citizens on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border! We’re still in the midst of a pandemic, but hundreds of thousands of people PER DAY are crossing the land border — and fully 90% are U.S. citizens or green card holders,” he posted to Twitter. “Whichever side of the border you live on, this is NOT the time to cross to shop, eat, or visit family on the other side. Only ‘essential’ travel is permitted over the land border.”

Source: La Jornada (sp)

6-year-old in serious condition after crocodile attack in Ixtapa

By

Susy Buchanan

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July 15, 2020

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Scene of the crocodile attack in Ixtapa.

A six-year-old boy was attacked by a crocodile in Ixtapa, Guerrero, on Tuesday afternoon and is in serious condition at a local hospital, authorities say.

The boy and his sister were playing near El Palmar beach when they wandered away from their parents and began exploring an estuary, home to numerous crocodiles that hotel staff routinely feed to entertain tourists.

Witnesses say that as the boy played near a fenced-off area under a bridge, a female crocodile with young grabbed him by the head, dragged him into the water and tried to drown him for approximately 10 minutes, biting him in the head, arms, chest and legs.

Tourists, a hotel lifeguard and parachutists threw stones at the three-meter-long crocodile, which eventually released the boy.

While being transferred by ambulance to hospital the child drifted in and out of consciousness, and had to be intubated upon arrival due to the severity of his injuries.

Source: ABC de Zihuatanejo (sp), El Sol de Acapulco (sp)

New coronavirus cases exceed 7,000 in one day for the second time

By

MND Staff

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July 15, 2020

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A home in which occupants were diagnosed with Covid-19 is disinfected in Xochimilco, Mexico City.

More than 7,000 new coronavirus cases were reported on a single day for just the second time on Tuesday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated case tally above 310,000.

The federal Health Ministry reported that the case tally had increased to 311,486 with 7,051 additional cases registered. The latter figure is 229 fewer than the single day record of 7,280 cases reported last Thursday.

The Health Ministry also reported that Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll had increased to 36,327 with 836 additional fatalities. The number of deaths reported Tuesday was the fifth highest single-day total since the beginning of the pandemic.

Mexico currently has the seventh highest coronavirus case tally in the world, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, and the fourth highest death toll behind only the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom.

Of the confirmed cases, 29,329 are considered active, an increase of 486 cases compared to Monday. There are also 80,721 suspected cases across the country, meaning the results of that number of Covid-19 tests are not yet known.

Active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday. milenio

Based on past positivity rates, the Health Ministry estimates that Mexico’s accumulated case tally is 349,893 and that active cases total 49,467, figures 12% and 69% higher, respectively, than the official numbers.

Mexico City has the highest number of accumulated cases among Mexico’s 32 states, with 58,855, followed by México state, where 43,544 people have tested positive. Tabasco, Puebla and Veracruz have the third, fourth and fifth highest case tallies, respectively.

Mexico City also leads the country for active cases, with 3,983, followed by Guanajuato and México state, where 2,544 and 2,427 people tested positive after developing coronavirus symptoms in the past 14 days.

Seven other states currently have more than 1,000 active cases. They are Nuevo León, Tabasco, Veracruz, Yucatán, Jalisco, Coahuila and Puebla.

Ten states have recorded more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic. They are Mexico City, 7,817; México state, 5,378; Baja California, 2,296; Veracruz, 2026; Puebla, 1,837; Sinaloa, 1,689; Tabasco, 1,455; Sonora, 1,170; Guerrero, 1,108; and Jalisco, 1,084.

At Tuesday night’s coronavirus press briefing, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell focused on data about the coronavirus situation in three states: Aguascalientes, Colima and Jalisco.

The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio

He said that cases numbers steadily increased in Aguascalientes from the start of the national social distancing initiative at the end of March until “epidemiological week 23,” which ran from May 31 to June 6. Case numbers have since stabilized in the small Bajío region state, López-Gatell said.

Aguascalientes has recorded 3,052 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, of which 376 are currently active, and 193 deaths. Just over a quarter of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied, while 29% of those with ventilators are in use.

López-Gatell said that the epidemic in Colima is currently in a growth phase, noting that the virus began spreading there later than most other states. The small Pacific coast state has recorded 939 confirmed Covid-19 cases, of which 203 are active, and 115 deaths.

Colima has the second lowest Covid-19 death toll in the country behind only Baja California Sur. The state has a 50% occupancy rate for general care hospital beds and a 39% rate for critical care ones.

Like Aguascalientes, case numbers in Jalisco have stabilized since week 23 of the epidemic, López-Gatell said. However, the virus is still in a growth phase in Guadalajara, the state’s capital and largest city, and Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco’s most popular tourist destination.

The state has recorded 9,511 cases, of which 1,310 are active, and 1,084 deaths. Hospital occupancy rates in the state are 25% for general care beds and 27% for those with ventilators.

Across Mexico, 13,272 of 29,663 general care beds are in use for an occupancy rate of 45%, while 3,751 of 9,659 beds with ventilators are in use, yielding an occupancy rate of 39%.

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

AMLO is doubling down on failed bets in Mexico

By

Santiago Levy

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July 14, 2020

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AMLO and Trump: celebrating renewal of the NAFTA bet.

When Mexico President López Obrador met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington last week, politics and bilateral relations were inevitably in the spotlight. Yet the underlying purpose of the visit was economic: to celebrate the signing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement on trade — essentially a renewed North American Free Trade Agreement (only under a new name, comme il faut).

This trade arrangement represents one of two strategic “bets” that Mexico first made almost 30 years ago and which, jointly considered, have failed. For all his talk of national renewal and historic transformation, they will fail under López Obrador too.

Consider these bets in turn. The first was Mexico’s dramatic decision in the mid-1990s to end decades of protectionism and integrate into the world economy. Its centrepiece was NAFTA, an ambitious treaty covering trade, investment, dispute settlement and other provisions meant to provide long-term certainty about the rules of the game.

In some ways, the bet was a spectacular success. Today, Mexico exports more manufactured goods than the rest of Latin America combined. However, this did not translate into faster growth. Over the last two and a half decades, per capita growth averaged less than 1% a year, far from what is required to build a prosperous society. It is one of the reasons why López Obrador swept to electoral victory in 2018.

Why did this bet fail, though? Poor macroeconomic management was not to blame. Nor was insufficient human capital or low investment; here the country’s performance is around regional averages. Mexico grew slowly because productivity stagnated — in large part due to its second bet.

This bet was placed alongside NAFTA and its aim was to reduce poverty and inequality. This would be done by leaving intact Mexico’s outdated and dysfunctional tax, labour and social insurance regulations, as well as its institutions for contract enforcement. Instead, social inclusion would be pursued through an ad hoc combination of additional pension, health, childcare, housing and poverty programs.

The idea was that this would allow the fruits of faster growth to be shared more equally. But faster growth never came.

Why? Think of the Mexican economy as being pulled in two opposite directions. On one side, NAFTA and investments in human capital worked to increase productivity. On the other side, complex labour, tax, and social insurance regulations, coupled with weak contract enforcement, worked towards lower productivity. Somewhat like Penelope in Homer’s “Odyssey”, this unknitted during the night what the first knitted during the day.

López Obrador has, in essence, made these two bets again. He has just celebrated with Trump the renewal of the first NAFTA bet. Since the beginning of his administration, he has continued with the second bet too.

Mexico’s dysfunctional tax, labour and social insurance institutions and regulations are still there, as are the well-known deficiencies of its judicial system. Social inclusion is meanwhile pursued, yet again, through ad hoc combinations of programs: some new, some old with new names (again, comme iI faut).

Moreover, the context in which these two bets are being made is more complex than ever.

The López Obrador administration has made a number of controversial decisions on the energy sector. It has also embarked on some highly visible and questionable investment projects, including a tourist train to circumnavigate the Mayan region of southern Mexico. These have increased business sector uncertainty and damped private investment, bringing to a halt the little growth that there was.

Furthermore, the absence of a countercyclical response to Covid-19 has deepened the inevitable recession. Associating such policies with corporate bailouts, and loath to take on public debt, López Obrador has instead insisted on relative fiscal inaction — unlike governments elsewhere.

Understandably, this has attracted a lot of attention and no little criticism. But that should not distract from the more important fact that the bets Mexico is making under López Obrador are the same as before. They did not work when conditions were more favourable. Sadly, there is no reason why they will work now.

The writer, a former Mexican deputy finance minister, is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.

Former ambassadors warn of unwelcoming signs for investors

By

MND Staff

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July 14, 2020

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Mexico needs to do more to create a welcoming environment for foreign investors, three former ambassadors said Monday.

Speaking during a virtual forum on the future of North America beyond the coronavirus pandemic and the ratification of the new free trade pact between Mexico, the United States and Canada, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson said the Mexican government is failing to demonstrate that it really welcomes foreign investment.

Jacobson, ambassador between 2016 and 2018, said that Mexico needs to establish a level playing field on which foreign investors and their capital are not unfairly disadvantaged.

She said that she receives telephone calls on a daily basis from business people in the United States who complain about a “capricious and dark” business environment in Mexico.

“This is something that is very serious for the [foreign] companies that are already in Mexico,” Jacobson said.

Former ambassador Jacobson. — Former ambassador Jacobson: a ‘capricious and dark business environment’ in Mexico.

“I don’t know how many companies haven’t invested in Mexico [due to the unfavorable business environment], it’s a cost … that can’t be measured.”

The former ambassador said that Mexico still has an opportunity to attract more foreign investors but warned that they could choose to go elsewhere if investment rules remain unclear and subject to sudden change, and the legal system and security situation don’t improve.

Jacobson’s remarks came two weeks after her successor, Ambassador Christopher Landau, said that it’s not a good time to invest in Mexico. Specifically citing recent changes to energy policy, Landau said that the federal government failed to keep its pledge not to change investment rules that were in place when it took office in late 2018.

The “uncertainty” created by the government could be a barrier to increased investment, he said.

Speaking at yesterday’s forum, former Canadian ambassador Pierre Alarie expressed a similar sentiment, asserting that clear rules and a stable political environment are paramount to attracting foreign investment.

Alari, ambassador between 2015 and 2019, said it is incorrect to think that the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, can fix the situation and that foreign investment will automatically flow into Mexico.

Former Canadian ambassador Alarie. — Former Canadian ambassador Alarie: clear rules and stable political environment are necessary.

The USMCA isn’t a “panacea” and thinking that it is “would be to fall into a very big trap,” he said. “The political position, political openness [to foreign investment] is very important in any country.”

During the same forum, former Mexican ambassador to the United States Gerónimo Gutiérrez also said that the accord will be insufficient to attract foreign investment while there is still uncertainty.

“You have to do the work, investment won’t arrive on its own,” he said, adding that investment in infrastructure will help to attract foreign investors.

“Foreign companies make a checklist,” Gutiérrez said, explaining that they look at whether electricity and water is available at competitive prices in a country where they are considering investing and whether there are reliable communication systems.

He also said that they look at the capacity of ports while considering how they will bring supplies into the country. Having good infrastructure is “fundamental” to attracting investment, Gutiérrez said.

President López Obrador says that he welcomes foreign investment – and traveled to Washington D.C. last week to celebrate the entry into force of the USMCA alongside United States President Donald Trump – but some policies enacted by his government have made it harder for foreign companies to enter into and operate in some sectors of the Mexican economy, especially the electricity and oil industries.

Source: El Financiero (sp)