Kamala Harris is about to meet Trump-friendly Mexican president AMLO. I have some words of advice

Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to meet virtually with the Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday regarding immigration and the climate crisis. But it’s unlikely she will get far with the bullheaded and contrarian populist ideologue. Let me tell you why.

For starters, Lopez Obrador — better known in Mexico by the acronym AMLO — doesn’t have a lot of experience in politics. Sure, he’s been campaigning for the past 25 years, but in terms of actual office-holding, he was only mayor of Mexico City for a few years and had to leave the post because of a bigpolitical and administrative controversy. Unlike Harris, he’s never been a senator, attorney general or anything close. To be blunt: He doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing — although he certainly thinks he does.

You may have heard AMLO is a “socialist”, but that’s not true; he’s more like aChavista. He likes power and public adulation; he despises the press that criticizes him and won’t listen to his advisers. That might remind Harris of someone she knows and helped impeach, twice. And indeed, Lopez Obrador and Trump were fellow populists and good friends, despite coming from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum.

It’s likely that AMLO will grumble about capitalists and “neoliberals” if Harris pushes him in meetings — he takes that route when he feels backed into a corner.Sure, he doesn’t appear to be laundering money through shell businesses like many of his colleagues. But power, not property or cash, is his drug of choice.

If Harris hopes to talk to AMLO about the Green New Deal, he’s likely to dance around the issue. See, renewable energy isn’treally his thing. On this and many other issues, he’s what I like to call a “fake progressive”. Over the past few months, he has been promoting the use of fossil fuels in Mexico, to the chagrin of environmentalists, human rights experts, scientists, and Mexican youth, generally.

Of course, that’s not what the meeting between Harris and AMLO is supposed to be primarily about. Harris has been charged with heading up the migration crisis. She is unlikely to get far. Lopez Obrador is hellbent on a program called “Sembrando Vida” (Sowing Life) that he will likely bring up to get around any thorny issues about human rights abuses at the border or his government’s harsh austerity measures. At first glance, the program might look good — reforestation is critical for controlling our climate crisis and thus helping the families fleeing the Northern Triangle Countries as a result of extreme weather events. But Harris is likely to have already done her homework and, I’m sure, knows that it isn’t as simple as it looks. Experts have warned that, in practice, people taking part in the program will most likely use the money to cut their trees (that are not deforested) in order to receive money for “reforestation”. It’s a charade. AMLO is going to repeat what he said at the recent Global Leaders Climate Crisis forum convened by President Biden — that if you invest in the Sowing Life project, you will see the migrant crisis at your border dissipate. For him, at least, it’s that simple.

Sticking with the issue of migration, Harris will likely want to discuss the issue of femicide and violence against women, since along with the climate crisis, corruption and extreme poverty, this is a major issue pushing women and children to flee the Northern Triangle countries. But she won’t find a friendly neighbor on this issue, either. AMLO has all but slammed the door in the face of victims of sexual and gender-based violence in Mexico. He has cut funding to women’s shelters and condemned feminists for protesting impunity for violence against women. He has also publicly defended an accused rapist, Felix Salgado Macedonio, a candidate for governor of the state of Guerrero who is a member of the president’s political party.

The political situation in Mexico is currently complicated and intense. Federal and local elections are coming up on June 6th and even though under Mexico’s Constitution the president cannot run for reelection, his party is looking to maintain control of the lower and upper house of Congress and even potentially extend his mandate. A major metro line collapsed this week, killing dozens of people and injuring more. The president and his party are under the spotlight for the catastrophe because he has been taking away funds for public services (like metro lines), domestic violence shelters, migrant shelters, roads, and other important works and institutions, and instead directing them toward poorly planned social assistance programs that many believe are aimed at placating his voting base.

My suggestion to VP Harris is this: Look to civil society organizations to help you make headway on the issues you were tasked with; forget about the Mexican president and Mexican politicians, generally. AMLO is on a perpetual political campaign and he’s rarely interested in silly things like science or facts or law. Those are reserved for the “neoliberals”. In other words, don’t get your hopes up — he’s never going to be on the same page.

Carli Pierson is an American freelance journalist and lawyer living in Mexico

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