Mexico: AMLO para siempre
Mexico: AMLO para siempre
Also: Israel, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Australia, the Pacific, and big tech.
In today’s dispatch:
MEXICO. A one-term president cements a permanent legacy.
ISRAEL. IRAN. Warnings of an imminent strike may be true, or may be false.
INDIA. BANGLADESH. Politics get nastier on both sides of the divide.
AUSTRALIA. THE PACIFIC. A police cooperation program is a drop in the ocean.
TECHNOLOGY. Regulators struggle again with social media.
Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily intelligence and risk briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, an advisory firm specialising exclusively in geopolitical risk.
MEXICO. AMLO para siempre
A one-term president cements a permanent legacy.
Two senators joined the Morena party Wednesday, leaving the government one seat short of a supermajority in both houses. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he had "paused" relations with the US and Canadian embassies.
INTELLIGENCE. AMLO, who will hand over to his protégé in October, is losing no time in passing contentious legal reforms, which have been slammed by the US and others. While relations with Washington will hold, the sidelining of the embassy will hardly buy incoming president Claudia Sheinbaum friends on either side of the aisle. She may not care. Should Morena secure another senator, and control judiciary, she’ll at least not have any domestic opponents.
FOR BUSINESS. A return to uni-party rule, as from 1929 to 2000, seems AMLO’s aim. Institutions are today stronger, and society freer, but violence and inequality have made many Mexicans nostalgic for soft authoritarianism. Some investors may agree, though Morena’s populism, and links to the cartels, are worrying. Weaker industrial demand and stubborn inflation has meanwhile led the central bank to cut its 2024 growth outlook Wednesday to 1.5% from 2.5%.
ISRAEL. IRAN. Confounding the alarm
Warnings of an imminent strike may be true, or may be false.
The Pentagon met with Arab military attachés Wednesday, Al Arabiya said, following local media reports the diplomats had been told of an impending Iranian attack on Israel. The White House said the US was "postured and poised".
INTELLIGENCE. There have been rumours of an imminent strike before, but Tehran appears happy to let these slide, in part to
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