[dropcap size=big]U.[/dropcap]S. President Donald Trump on Monday called and spoke with the president-elect of Mexico after his historic landslide victory, an early sign of warmer relations between two countries that face critical dual challenges over immigration, free trade, and the drug war.
“I received a call from Donald Trump and we spoke for half an hour,” tweeted election-night winner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “I proposed we explore a comprehensive agreement; with development projects that generate employment in Mexico, and with it, reduce migration and increase security. The treatment was respectful and our representatives will continue the dialogue.”
Lopez Obrador on Sunday won the presidential election in Mexico by a larger margin than ever seen in multi-party democratic times in the U.S.’s southern neighbor.
The leftist known as AMLO captured 53 percent of the vote in a four-way race, and beat his closest rival by at least 31 points. In the 2012 election, AMLO finished in second-place, by only 7 points.
Estos son los resultados del #ConteoRápido Aunque el resultado oficial se publica el 4 de julio, ya se ve claro el triunfo de AMLO #elecciones2018 pic.twitter.com/Wdq4qzwg1a
— MT_enMEXICO (@MT_enMEXICO) July 2, 2018
Presidents in Mexico serve one six-year term and are ineligible for reelection.
Sunday's landslide result is remarkable on multiple levels. It is the first-time a leftist opposition candidate has beaten the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico’s modern history. (The PRI since the Revolution has been a symbol of one-party rule, with its excesses and corruption; it was booted from power in 2000 by the conservative Vicente Fox and returned to power in 2012.)
AMLO’s party, known as Morena, captured a majority in both houses of Mexico’s Congress — which is also wild considering it didn't exist five years ago. The Mexican Senate and House of Deputies was once almost entirely the province of the PRI under decades of patronage, nepotism, and vote-buying. The PRI had its worst result ever in representative races.
The veteran leftist campaigner will now have a total mandate to carry out a progressive platform with the public sector in Mexico, the world’s fifteenth largest economy by GDP. Mexico is the United States’s third largest trading partner.
Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on becoming the next President of Mexico. I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2018
Meanwhile, the United States is tense over a humanitarian and political crisis on the Mexico border caused the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policies.
Monday's call offered some hope. The future of bilateral relations between U.S. and Mexico now hangs in the abilities of two populists — one from the right and one from the left — in solving the crises left over from free-market, socially liberal governments led by Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s current and outgoing president.
On Sunday night, people poured into plazas and streets in Mexico to celebrate AMLO's victory. In a speech to supporters, he made mention of Mexico's LGBT community, another first that was heralded by activists on social media.
Primera vez que un presidente electo en #México nos menciona. 🏳️🌈
"El Estado representará a todos los mexicanos, ricos y pobres, migrantes, creyentes y no creyentes, de todas las corrientes de pensamiento y preferencias sexuales." – @LopezObrador_ #AMLO#Elecciones2018
— Enrique Torre Molina (@ETorreMolina) July 2, 2018
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