“Government functions previously outsourced to private and semi-private firms have been brought back in-house and the subcontracting of public services abolished.”
By Tim Young
Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is facing a tough challenge from President Trump who recently announced the imposition of tariffs of up to 25% on Mexican exports to the US. About 80% of Mexico’s exports currently flow to the US, while exports as a whole make up 40% of Mexico’s GDP.
Trump’s tariffs violate the terms of the 2018 US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA), which Trump himself negotiated, as well as Article 20 of the Charter of the Organization of American States. But as with the illegal coercive sanctions against Latin American countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, legality does not rank as a bar to the exercise of US power.
President Sheinbaum’s response has been steadfast, saying: “when we negotiate with other nations, when we talk with other nations, we always do so with our heads held high, never with our heads down.”
She has also categorically rejected Trump’s allegation that Mexican drug traffickers had an “intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico.”
In practice the Mexican drug cartels are armed with weapons flowing across the border from the US firearms industry, while catering for the almost insatiable demand by US residents for illegal drugs, yet Trump places all the blame on Mexico.
Trump is also implementing a policy of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, including Mexicans. Countering this, Sheinbaum already has in place an extensive and humanitarian-focused programme to support all deported Mexican citizens.
Sheinbaum can count on support from the public, with crowds cheering “¡No estás sola, no estás sola!” (You do not stand alone!) and from Congress where her MORENA party and its allies hold about 73% of seats in the lower house of Congress and just shy of a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Sheinbaum is the MORENA party’s successor to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), elected last June when the right wing in Mexico suffered a historic defeat. She won the presidential election by a landslide margin of over 32 points, becoming the first woman and first person of Jewish descent to be elected president.
During AMLO’s time in office, Mexico made real progress in fields such as social welfare, education, health, women’s rights and equality for Indigenous people and Afro-Mexicans. The government also recovered control over key resources such as petroleum, gas, electric power, water supplies and now lithium.
On the regional and global stage, it played a leading role as part of the new progressive tide across Latin America. AMLO’s foreign policy emphasised Latin American integration while denouncing US sanctions and interventionism. This included condemning the coups in Bolivia and Peru, the blockade of Cuba and the US’s ongoing illegal regime change efforts in Venezuela, while expressing solidarity with progressive Latin American governments and opposing Israel’s war on the people of Gaza.
President Sheinbaum has continued with AMLO’s agenda of advancing democracy and social progress on the basis of rolling back neoliberalism and reasserting national sovereignty. The overarching goal is “4T” ‒ the fourth transformation of the country through a democratic renewal to end corruption and impunity, and benefit the many, not just the few.
Key to this is prioritising social programmes, moving towards a more universal approach to welfare and social security. The effects are concrete and far-reaching — state payments now reach 65% more people than under previous governments. Crucially, welfare programmes are now enshrined in the constitution as entitlements rather than handouts.
Other new social programmes have included scholarships to students at various levels, including basic education, secondary school, and university, alongside vocational training opportunities; support for reconstruction efforts in areas affected by natural disasters; and economic support to farmers through the Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) programme to promote sustainable rural development. This project has so far assisted 440,000 families and reforested 1.2 million hectares in Mexico.
Sheinbaum is committed to continue AMLO’s drive to regain energy sovereignty by ending the handing of Mexico’s natural resources to multinational corporations and oligarchs, putting people and public need before corporate greed.
This has involved reining in the power of foreign mining companies through a new hydrocarbons law enabling permits to private firms that commit certain violations to be revoked.
This reclaiming of national wealth has helped fund vital state-led investment and infrastructure projects, including a 1,554 km-long intercity railway traversing the Yucatan Peninsula.
Halting and reversing privatisations in favour of a stronger role for the state and public sector has been both successful and popular. Government functions previously outsourced to private and semi-private firms have been brought back in-house and the subcontracting of public services abolished.
Workers’ rights have also improved, starting to shift power in the workplace and economy. The formal rights of domestic workers are now recognised for the first time, and precarious hiring practices have been eliminated, including through the banning of “fire-and-rehire” style practices. Meanwhile, the process for forming new unions has been simplified.
As Mexico’s experience is revealing, rolling back neoliberalism works, showing how another world is possible.
- You can find out more about the Mexico Solidarity Forum here.
- The Arise Festival’s upcoming dayschool Socialism or Barbarism, hosted in London on Saturday 29th March, will feature speakers on international solidarity with progressive forces in Latin America as well as a range of topics- you can find out more and register here.
- You can follow Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America on Facebook and Twitter/X.
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