Smith: Next Steps for Claudia Sheinbaum – Rio Grande Guardian (2024)

Claudia Sheinbaum won a staggering victory in Mexico’s June 2 national elections, becoming Mexico’s first woman elected president as well as the first Jewish president in the nation’s history.

She will take office on October 1, and faces a barrage of tough issues, many of which will be of great importance to the United States. It’s essential, therefore, that we build a relationship with her that focuses on some of our common issues.

My wife and I were in Mexico City from Friday, May 31 until Monday, June 3, stayed in the Majestic Hotel on the edge of the huge Zócalo or central square, and had the opportunity to interview dozens of Mexicans about this historic election. They were teachers pushing for better salaries, restaurant workers, street cleaners, hotel employees, street vendors, taxis drivers – basically working people.

Here is what we learned.

First, there was a lack of enthusiasm for the two major candidates – Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Galvéz. That was powerful. We constantly heard basically the same comment. “Todos son corruptos. Todos son malos.” This was a huge shock because both candidates were highly educated and accomplished in public policy. Galvéz was a successful businesswoman and Sheinbaum a climate scientist who did the work for her doctoral thesis at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. She was part of a UN panel of climate scientists that won a Nobel Prize in 2007.

Second, almost everyone we spoke to immediately said that corruption and violence were the major issues. As Mayor of Mexico City from 2018 to 2023, however, Sheinbaum initiated programs that dramatically reduced crime in Mexico City.

Third, although the presidential contest has dominated the news, all 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, ( the lower chamber of Mexico’s congress) were up for election as well as the 128 Senate seats. In addition, there were thousands of state and local elections; this is where the drug cartels have been deeply involved. Their goal is to control state and local governments.

This was evidenced by extraordinary violence during the election cycle. Thirty six candidates were murdered throughout the country and many others were deterred from running because of the violence.

Sheinbaum’s challenges are also ours. Here are some ways in which we should immediately reach out to work with her.

In 2023 there were about 74,000 fentanyl deaths in the U.S. and Mexican cartels are to blame. They are extraordinarily powerful because they are so heavily armed, largely with weapons from the U.S. Sheinbaum should push us to better control the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico. One possible deterrent would be random screening of vehicles headed south through our ports of entry.

Both countries should work together to find technology that would make it easier to inspect large vehicles for drugs.

Another crime-related issue is education. We interviewed teachers from the state of Guerrero who had been living in tents in the Zócalo for two weeks hoping to talk to political leaders about the pathetic salaries teachers receive. They were making the equivalent of about $7,200 a year which is one tenth of what a relative of mine makes working in the Santa Fe school district. Without a huge emphasis on better education, how are young people going to be deterred from the drug trade?

In terms of immigration, the willingness of Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) to control Mexico’s southern border has been the most important factor in reducing the numbers of migrants seeking to cross our border. President Biden has already reached out to President- elect Sheinbaum to continue this relationship.

There are additional steps that could be taken. For example, we should expand and simplify our guest worker programs so that more Mexican workers could come here legally and fill temporary jobs in areas like agriculture and construction. This would cut down on the number of young men attempting to cross the border illegally, give the U.S. needed workers, and provide income that those workers could return to Mexico as remittances. In 2023, more than $63 billion in remittances were sent from the U.S. to Mexico.

In addition, until fairly recently Mexican soldiers were stationed at the border in places like Anapra west of Juárez. That could be continued with better coordination with our Border Patrol agents.

In terms of International trade, Mexico is now our largest trading partner, having surpassed China. Sheinbaum deserves better assurance that Mexico’s northbound trucks won’t be delayed unnecessarily at the U.S. border as the state of Texas has done.

These may seem like small steps but there is no single magic answer to the issues Sheinbaum faces. I think, however, that she is the best hope Mexico has had in decades. This is the fourth time I’ve been in Mexico for a presidential election – in Mexico City in 2006 when Felipe Calderón defeated AMLO and in 2012 when Enrique Pena Nieto won, in Juárez in 2018 when AMLO won. Of all of these recent candidates, Sheinbaum is the most impressive. I predict that she will win over the critics we encountered. Her successes will be successes for us as well.

Last, a personal note. I want to thank all those who we interviewed for their courtesy and their willingness to share their hopes and their concerns for their country.

Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Morgan Smith, a retired lawyer and government official from Colorado who nowlives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Smith writes regularly on border issues. He has been going to the border – mostly Juarez and Palomas – at least monthly for the last 13 years to document conditions there and assist a variety of humanitarian programs and, more recently, migrant shelters. The column appears in the Rio Grande Guardian with the permission of the author. Smith can be reached by email via morgan-smith@comcast.net.