The U.S. has to be ready for Mexico's next president

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The Mexican presidential election is less than a month away and the only certainty is that Mexico will have a female president. If polls are to be trusted, leftist Claudia Sheinbaum, a former head of government of Mexico City, will likely defeat her main challenger, Xóchitl Gálvez.

A new government could mean an opportunity for the U.S. to hit reset and engage the new president sooner rather than later. Of course, the timing of our own elections presents a challenge, but both parties in the U.S. need to be thinking strategically here. Mexico is our main economic partner, and it took too long to have a working relationship with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, even if trusting him as a partner was and remains a hard bargain.

Regardless of who replaces López Obrador, he will be handing over a less democratic country thanks to his military-friendly policies. Under his rule, the armed forces have gained strength, power and influence. The Mexican military now oversees major infrastructure projects, tourism development, management of ports and even public health.

"Much of Mexican politics works with unwritten rules, and López Obrador has been granting concessions and assurances of limited oversight, allowing the military a place at the table in ways previous presidents didn't dare to do," Gladys McCormick, a Mexico-U.S. relations scholar at the University of Syracuse in New York, told us.

This shadowy power complicates diplomacy, and Washington should keep an eye on it, particularly as it relates to enforcement of drug policy. López Obrador was never a reliable partner, limiting cooperation, openly criticizing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and even denying that the Mexican cartels produce fentanyl, the opioid that kills 70,000 Americans each year.

López Obrador was a particularly pernicious force in the Salvador Cienfuegos case, a Mexican general arrested in the U.S. for alleged drug trafficking whose charges were eventually dropped by U.S. authorities in 2020.

Sheinbaum, 61, will probably continue the policies of her political mentor, creating more difficulties in addressing drug trafficking.

Gálvez, 61, a "conservative" with an affection for progressive causes, is seen largely as a pragmatic politician, but she is more than 20 points behind in polls.

On immigration, the U.S.-Mexican partnership is probably at its best in recent years, with President Joe Biden and López Obrador recently announcing tougher enforcement on railways, buses and airports. Biden owes much of the decrease in border crossings in recent months to Mexico's actions. López Obrador's successor will likely continue this cooperation, with the caveat that an eventual Donald Trump administration might upend some of the Biden policies.

The winner of the Mexican elections will take office in October. The U.S. must be ready.

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