The López Obrador administration in México

Between crisis and relations with the United States

Abstract

The election of López Obrador in Mexico brought expectations of renewal of the economic development strategy and of foreign policy. However, his electoral proposals were generic towards the dimension of the challenges. The aim of this article is to discuss the policies of López Obrador administration considering the context of crisis he was elected. The text is organized in three sections. First, we contextualise the main parties, the political behaviour of the governments and the standard domination in Mexican history during the 20th century. Second, we present four dimensions that help to understand the critical context that López Obrador was elected in 2018: the Mexican economic structure; the policy of raising wages; migration and international remittances; and the food imports and Mexican countryside. And third, we analyze the foreign and development policy during AMLO's first year in power. We argue that the ‘forth transformation’ announced by him necessarily implies a structural revision of Mexican foreign and development policy, what is not addressed by López Obrador. In this sense, we detect a relatively late version of Latin America progressivism, but without questioning the foundations of Mexican dependency on the United States.