Sheinbaum's security challenge
Nov. 12, 2024
A month and a half into her mandate, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum faces a nationwide wave of criminal violence, reports the Los Angeles Times. Mexico often sees an uptick in violence during elections and directly after. “Eschewing the approach of multiple leaders before her, who formed new police or military forces to confront criminals, her strategy appears more focused on improving crime investigations.”
A string of confrontations suggests Sheinbaum is more willing than her predecssor “to use the full force of the military and the militarized National Guard,” reported the Associated Press last week.
“There are traces of a change in tone toward organized crime, but it’s too early to call,” security analyst Falko Ernst told the AP. “It seems unlikely that the Sheinbaum administration would risk a politically inconvenient, steady stream of violent imagery by betting on wholesale balazos (bullets)-only strategy,” but there may be more willingness to confront “the most overt and brazen displays of power” by the cartels.
Mexico’s president “is avoiding the 'hugs not bullets rhetoric' without explicitly saying she is rejecting AMLO's formulation. She has openly rejected comparisons of her approach to Calderon's war on cartels or EPN's kingpin strategy,” writes James Bosworth at Latin America Risk Report.
Sheinbaum’s administration, so far, has been more about continuity than change with Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government. “Sheinbaum seems committed to proceeding with the transformation of Mexico’s political system that AMLO began. She has preserved AMLO’s anti-pluralistic rhetoric and his penchant for handing more power to the military. And it’s not clear how much emphasis her own signature policies—on the environment, for example—will receive,” writes Jacques Coste in Americas Quarterly.
More Mexico
“Sheinbaum’s government seeks to meet Mexico’s increased energy needs with a focus on renewables,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Regional Relations
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s threat of mass deportations will have an outsize effect on Mexico — about half of the estimated 11 million people living illegally in the U.S. are Mexican, and it is easier to carry out deportations there than to other countries. But the move could have a dramatic effect on areas already afflicted by poverty and organized crime, reports the Washington Post.
Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on car imports from Mexico could hurt factories and workers on both sides of the border, reports the New York Times.
Mexico's Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard suggested yesterday that the Mexican government could retaliate with its own tariffs on U.S. imports if the incoming Trump administration slaps tariffs on Mexican exports, reports Reuters.
Migration
Trump “stands to inherit enforcement tools from the Biden administration that are even more powerful than the policies at his disposal last time,” notes the Washington Post.
Extreme weather is contributing to undocumented migration, which suggests that more people could risk their lives crossing the border as climate change fuels droughts, storms and other hardships, according to a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Associated Press)
Costa Rica
“Costa Rica on Monday bestowed its highest diplomatic honor on El Salvador President Nayib Bukele for his success in lowering levels of violence during a more than two-year campaign against powerful street gangs,” reports the Associated Press.
Bukele’s visit to Costa Rica comes in the midst of an ongoing debate over how the country should respond to escalating violence. “The country once boasted of being the safest in Central America, but in 2023, it broke an all-time record for homicides … With insecurity identified as the population’s top concern and news of El Salvador’s plummeting murder rate circulating widely, many are eagerly anticipating the visit from Bukele, who enjoys both the admiration of President Chaves as well as a significant sector of the Costa Rican population,” reports El Faro.
Haiti
Haiti’s transitional presidential council swore in the country’s new prime minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, yesterday, after stripping Gary Conille of the title in a move experts found legally dubious. Fils-Aimé said restoring security and calling elections will be his priority. (Miami Herald, see yesterday’s post)
Yesterday’s ceremony came after gunfire struck an flight arriving from Fort Lauderdale, forcing Haiti’s international airport to temporarily shutdown. (Washington Post)
The airport remained closed and most of the capital paralyzed today, reports the Associated Press.
U.S. authorities are considering a ban on flights to Haiti due to incidents of violence. (ABC News)
Colombia
The United States financed the purchase of Israeli spy software Pegasus for Colombian security forces in 2020, a move made without informing then-president Ivan Duque, a senior US official told AFP.
Ecuador
A fight among prison inmates in Ecuador has left at least 15 people dead and 14 injured at the country’s largest prison, reports the Associated Press.
Bolivia
Bolivia’s constitutional court barred former President Evo Morales from running again for elected office, on Friday, a decision that keeps him out of next year’s presidential election. (Al Jazeera)
Paraguay
“Paraguay’s conservative president Santiago Peña faces pressure from investors and diplomats to veto a contentious law backed by allies of the country’s most powerful man, who helped propel Peña himself to power,” reports the Financial Times.
Peru
A Peruvian Supreme Court judge ordered the Attorney General’s office to compel IDL-Reporteros to turn over audio recordings that were part of its 2018 investigation into judicial corruption and to interrogate Gustavo Gorriti, its editor-in-chief. (Committee to Protect Journalists)
Regional
Latin American poverty levels in 2023 fell to a 33-year low, led by progress in Brazil, the United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said in a new report — Reuters