Mexico’s next president can reset relations with the United States

Mexicans elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador president in 2018 for sound reasons; his diagnosis that inequality, insecurity and a corrupt political class were damaging Mexico was convincing. But apart from poverty-reducing minimum-wage increases, Mr López Obrador’s “Fourth Transformation” has taken Mexico backwards. A statist, bent on tearing down the works of his predecessors, he is leaving the health-care and education systems in tatters. His reversal of pro-competition energy-market reforms has made Mexico’s electricity dirty and costly. Water is scarce. His hands-off security policy has let criminal groups strengthen their grip. He has attacked independent institutions, from the electoral body to the Supreme Court. In part because of his animus towards the private sector, the economic growth rate has been on average 2-3% per year in the non-pandemic years of his presidency, a mediocre figure given the huge opportunity facing Mexico, and momentum has slowed in the past six months.