Mexico’s president pledged to improve the economy, fight inequality and corruption, and strengthen democracy. As his six-year term enters its final stretch, it is already clear that he will fail to keep his word.
NEW YORK – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reached the beginning of the end. AMLO, as he is widely known, was inaugurated on December 1, 2018, having promised to improve Mexico’s economy, reduce poverty and inequality, and tackle corruption and violence, all while strengthening the country’s infant democracy, and will leave office on September 30, 2024. With his term more over than not, most of what he was going to achieve has already been achieved – and it’s not much.
AMLO did not improve the economy. In fact, Mexico’s GDP has not even returned to its pre-pandemic level, and forecasts for 2023 and 2024 by the International Monetary Fund and the OECD suggest that it may not have grown at all during AMLO’s six years in office.
Worse still, the future looks grim. Overall investment fell to below 20% of GDP after 2019. And despite predictions that Mexico will benefit from the shift toward “near-shoring” by firms in the United States, current low investment almost guarantees anemic growth in the coming years. Mexico’s economy may one day grow again, but that day is far off.
NEW YORK – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has reached the beginning of the end. AMLO, as he is widely known, was inaugurated on December 1, 2018, having promised to improve Mexico’s economy, reduce poverty and inequality, and tackle corruption and violence, all while strengthening the country’s infant democracy, and will leave office on September 30, 2024. With his term more over than not, most of what he was going to achieve has already been achieved – and it’s not much.
AMLO did not improve the economy. In fact, Mexico’s GDP has not even returned to its pre-pandemic level, and forecasts for 2023 and 2024 by the International Monetary Fund and the OECD suggest that it may not have grown at all during AMLO’s six years in office.
Worse still, the future looks grim. Overall investment fell to below 20% of GDP after 2019. And despite predictions that Mexico will benefit from the shift toward “near-shoring” by firms in the United States, current low investment almost guarantees anemic growth in the coming years. Mexico’s economy may one day grow again, but that day is far off.