Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, March 03, 2017

Peña Nieto less popular in Mexico than Donald Trump?

It's good that Peña Nieto can't run for re-election.

In Mexico, President Peña Nieto more unpopular than Trump

Discontent runs so deep over domestic issues here — including a recent 20% hike in gas prices — that many Mexicans express more frustration with President Enrique Peña Nieto than with Mexico-bashing… Donald Trump...

Peña Nieto

Despite Trump's litany of criticisms, Mexicans are increasingly upset with their own government. This month they marched in the streets, blocked highways, looted stores and closed gas stations to protest gasolinazo, the jump in the government-set gasoline price.

Peña Nieto holds a low approval rating of 12%, according to a poll… in the Reforma newspaper, as Mexico is engulfed with deep public debts, sluggish oil revenues and political scandals.

“There’s a sense of grievance” with the government, said Ilán Semo, a political historian at the Iberoamerican University…

Trump’s threats have already caused turmoil in Mexico, which has transformed over the past 25 years from a closed economy to one so open that more than $500 billion in goods annually cross the border.

The impact has especially hit the automobile industry, which has expanded rapidly and “represents about one-third of total Mexican manufacturing and roughly about one-third of total non-oil exports,” said Jonathan Heath, an independent economist in Mexico City…