ADVERTISEMENT

AMLO Defends His Record on Migrants, Growth, and Donald Trump

AMLO Defends His Record on Migrants, Growth, and Donald Trump

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, hasn’t stopped to rest since taking office eight months ago. After meeting with his security team to assess the latest crime statistics, he speaks most weekdays at 7 a.m. from the presidential palace in Mexico City, making announcements and taking questions from the press. On weekends he flies coach to visit places such as Zongolica, Veracruz, and Tapachula, Chiapas, to meet with locals and sell his social policies, which include direct cash transfers to elderly and young people.

On July 29 he sat down with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait for his first interview as president with an international news outlet. Their conversation began with a discussion of the U.S., which López Obrador continues to view as an ally.

AMLO Defends His Record on Migrants, Growth, and Donald Trump

We share a 3,180-kilometer border with the United States. If we were a European country or a South American country, perhaps, we could try to have a different type of relationship with the United States. However, we’re neighbors, and this neighborliness makes it mandatory for us to understand each other.

Micklethwait: On Friday, July 26, as you know, Guatemala entered a “safe third country” agreement. Now, when people from countries like Honduras or El Salvador seek asylum, they have to apply in Guatemala first rather than going to America. Would you ever let Mexico agree to the same?

We wouldn’t. We are enforcing a program to reduce the number of migrants; it provides protection to those coming into Mexico. Migrants have been murdered, and that’s something we do not want. We mobilized the National Guard—we already had that plan, since before the threat of tariffs. Results have been good, although, I must insist, the best way is to look into the causes of this: People do not migrate because they want to; they do it because of need. I have a dream that I want to turn into a reality. The day will come during my administration in which Mexicans will not be going for work to the United States anymore, because Mexicans will have work and they will be happy where they’re born.

When you were interviewed by Bloomberg in 2017, you accused Donald Trump of “having a campaign of hatred against Mexican immigrants.” Do you still believe that?

I think that, as we say informally, he has toned it down. President Trump is more moderate now, and we are grateful for that. In spite of the fact that—and I say this with due respect—the United States is now going through an electoral process. A president takes office in the United States, works for two years, and then, after that time, he starts thinking about being reelected. That is what is happening now. In Mexico, we have a six-year period with no reelection. This works well for us. You are having elections in November 2020, next year, and the campaigning has already started. This has a lot to do with—sorry to say this—the migration policy and other …

Just to push you one last time: Your heroes are people like Lázaro Cárdenas, Abraham Lincoln, Benito Juárez. These were all men of principle who stood up to bullies. Do you think that you are standing up to Donald Trump?

There are parallels, you see. When Abraham Lincoln was president in the United States, in Mexico, Benito Juárez was the president, the best president in the history of this country. And there was a good relationship. And President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the titan of freedoms, really had a very good understanding with President Cárdenas, in spite of the fact that, because of circumstances, President Cárdenas had to nationalize oil. Now, even though President Trump is a Republican, and myself, I have a progressive political stance with a social dimension, a nationalist position, I think we can understand each other. We’ve talked three, four times on the phone. The most complicated issue was this recent topic, the tariff threat. And we reached an agreement.

Can we look at the Mexican economy? You were hoping for it to grow at 4%. This week, there were worries you may go into recession. Do you think Mexico will go into recession this year?

No, no. We’re doing fine. The economy is not growing as we would want it to, but on the other hand, we have other indicators that show that the economy is fine. For instance, the peso has strengthened. Let me clarify this: I mentioned a 4% average in my six-year term, not 4% in a year’s time. Forecasters may say, “How can you go from 2% to 4% in Mexico?” Well, before the neoliberal period, for 50 years since the Mexican Revolution, we grew at 5% or 6% a year with no devaluation and no inflation. The Mexican miracle in the economy—that’s what we want.

But can you have a Mexican miracle with interest rates at 8.25%? I know you have been good at not interfering in the central bank, but do you think that interest rates are too high?

Yes, but look, I’m respectful of the autonomy of the central bank. They’re more cautious about inflation. That’s not a bad thing. But it’s important to lower rates to kick-start the economy. This is an issue that we are leaving for the central bank to decide, because we trust we’ll deliver not only growth, but also development. We want to create new paradigms. Growth creates wealth but doesn’t necessarily distribute wealth. Development is growing and distributing wealth.

When most people from the Left come to power, they tend to spend money, but you have followed policies of austerity. Some of your critics say you care too much about the surplus and that is one reason why the economy is not growing. Do you accept that?

Well, that’s the new paradigm. The first problem of Mexico is corruption—I can tell you that today, no corruption is tolerated.

On the Left, people think that austerity is firing people. One time, I was talking to the Labour leader, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn of the United Kingdom, my friend. He said, “How can you talk about austerity? I don’t understand.” Austerity for us Mexicans, however, is inspired by President Benito Juárez, who used to say that public officials had to learn to live in the middle, without any luxuries. But a lot was being spent in supporting the government. Former presidents of Mexico had pensions that amounted to more than any former president receives in any part of the world. The Mexican president was being protected by 8,000 security guards of the presidential security detail, who made more than any soldiers. All this was canceled. That’s austerity.
 
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. López Obrador’s answers have been translated from Spanish.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jillian Goodman at jgoodman74@bloomberg.net

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.