Breathe
By Yessica de la Madrid
With days to go before the year 2024 comes to an end, it is necessary to take a deep look at the two most relevant growths for the country: economic growth and the growth of insecurity and violence.
Let's start with the results of the six-year term of office of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in both agendas.
The Lopez-Obrador administration delivered to Mexicans one of the lowest growth averages in decades; the economic data published so far, as well as the growth estimate for this year, indicate that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew, on average, 1.4 percent.
Although the six-year period was influenced by the severe economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the analyses point out that the policies adopted by the Mexican government, such as focusing public spending on mega-projects such as the Dos Bocas refinery, the Mayan Train and the Felipe Angeles airport, to the detriment of national infrastructure spending, have limited or cancelled this type of investment in most of the country, affecting economic and industrial growth in several regions.
This generated uncertainty in the private sector, limiting investment to local and regional government investment cells. By the end of 2024 we find a country with public finances weakened by high and expensive indebtedness, with very low ratings from international rating agencies, a worrisome deficit and high inflation that affects, above all, those who have the least. This may not be noticeable in the pockets of most Mexicans for three reasons: First, the famous Nearshoring, which compensates for the effect of erratic public policies; Second, the social programs that are a real increase in the income of the poorest households in the country, and the effect of remittances, and; Third, the immense capital that enters our economy through informal and criminal channels, which, although we can roughly calculate, there is no certainty about its true impact on the economy.
The other burning issue at the end of 2024 is insecurity and violence. The policy of "Hugs, not bullets" that resulted in the Mexican State's failure to assume its primary obligation, to provide security and protect the life and property of the population under the model of the monopoly of violence, has left sectors of the country defenseless against organized crime that hurts citizens and imposes additional costs on the economy, especially the local economy. The balance of homicides, of almost 200,000 in the six-year term, without a noticeable drop in the trend in 2024. This is not the result of this year, it is the consequence of public policies that allowed crime to grow throughout the national territory, leaving for all to see the complicity and in the best of cases, the lack of commitment of some state and municipal governments to confront organized crime, but also the withdrawal of federal forces to continue with the task.
The 2024 elections ratified that most of the country supports a strong central government, a product of the polarization driven from the National Palace. This environment of constant confrontation, created in 2018 and that in 2024 has not ceased, has hindered the implementation of consensual public policies. And in this, the ruling party assumed greater power.
In addition, there is a clear uncertainty about what is coming for Mexico in 2025, especially due to the return to the White House of Donald Trump and a very radical wing of conservatism and xenophobia within the Republican Party that wants to alter the Mexico-United States-Canada Trade Agreement (T-MEC) and impose conditions of dominance regarding security and economics towards our country.
Under all of the above, we have a year of chiaroscuro, which leaves more doubts than certainty about what is to come.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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