Good morning, and welcome to the Global Situation Report for Friday, 11 October 2024.
- FUTURE OF U.S.-MEXICO RELATIONS UNDER SHEINBAUM: Former Mexican Ambassadors to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán (2007-13) and Martha Bárcena (2018-21) expressed concerns that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is setting Mexico up for failure.
- Bárcena says the new Mexican government is betting on the U.S. pursuing a nearshoring policy but that the U.S. is likely to pursue a reshoring policy. Sarukhán pointed out that Mexico’s biggest “nearshoring” competitor is Texas, and added that Mexico is facing similar energy shortages as the U.S., preventing manufacturing infrastructure from even being built.
- Bárcena believes the U.S. Congress will seek to renegotiate the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement upon review in 2025. Bárcena says the Sheinbaum administration has no trade experts ready for renegotiation and all former experts are “neoliberals.”
- U.S. Ambassadors to Mexico Roberta Jacobson and Tony Wayne advised Mexico against further pursuing a “triangulation policy” with China and the U.S. because it would just anger the United States.
Why It Matters: Sheinbaum is a technocrat who will carry on former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s (AMLO) left wing populist “Fourth Transformation” political revolution. But Sheinbuam’s ambitious plans for the Mexican economy are up against reality. Mexico, for instance, remains dependent on U.S. oil exports to fuel its economy, and Sheinbaum’s pledge to “green” the Mexican economy will almost certainly stall. Sheinbaum has also promised to re-industrial parts of northern Mexico to produce exports for U.S. markets. Mexico also became the top U.S. trade partner this year, signaling a deepening dependence. This is another reason why AMLO rejected membership in the BRICS economic alliance, but that idea may be revisited under Sheinbaum. A potential Trump administration may find greater difficulty in dealing with Sheinbaum’s elitist, globalist technocrat ideology as opposed to the “little guy” left wing populism conveyed by AMLO. Like AMLO, Sheinbaum will reject Mexico being seen as a vassal of the United States, while closer relations with China is one alternative. The trend among left wing governments across Latin America has been to turn towards economic promises from China. A Sheinbaum pivot towards China, as we’ve seen with Brazil’s Lula da Silva, is the most dangerous scenario. – M.S.
- Global Rollup
- The World Sindh Congress is holding its annual conference in the U.K.’s House of Commons and moderated by a British Parliamentarian for the first time this weekend. The conference is calling on the U.S. and U.K. governments to ensure the rights of the Balochi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, and Pashtun peoples in Pakistan. The representative from Balochistan claims Pakistan’s government is genociding the Balochi people. (This conference coincides with a spate of Balochistani terrorism against Chinese workers in Pakistan. If the four peoples mentioned rose up, the fight would likely cut off the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. This is also strategically advantageous for the U.S. and U.K. as India’s primary security concern, a nuclear Pakistan, would be occupied during a potential fight with China. – J.V.)
- Israel still has not decided on how to respond to Iran’s latest attack, according to an Israeli official speaking anonymously after the security cabinet meeting last night.
- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is using the ASEAN summit to rally ASEAN against China and finish a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (SCS). Marcos cited a Chinese attack on Vietnamese fishermen alongside the slew of confrontations with the Philippines. Chinese Premier Li Qiang denied China had done anything wrong and told ASEAN to respect and support China’s peace efforts in the SCS.
- South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun told his parliament that North Korea is highly likely to deploy troops to the Ukraine war and that he believes a Ukrainian report that several North Korean officers were killed and wounded near Donetsk.
- At the BRICS+ Finance Ministers’ meeting, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that “ BRICS economies in general show greater stability, pursuing responsible economic and financial policies.” He also encouraged BRICS members to reject the IMF and World Bank as they are “not working in the interests of BRICS countries.”
THAT’S A WRAP: This does it for today’s edition. Thank you for reading. If you know folks who would also like to receive this email, would you please forward it to them? We appreciate you spreading the word. – M.S.