Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. May 29, 2024 | |
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Mexico's First Female President? |
Mexico is an important country these days. It "has become a crucial actor in the shifting global order," The Economist writes. "The number of migrants travelling through Mexico to the United States has surged, and illegal migration is currently the most important political issue in the world's most powerful country. The West looks to Mexico to help it decouple from China, especially for manufacturing vital green technologies and electronics. Mexico's next president will have great influence on both counts."
That next president is likely to be a woman. To some observers, that is the salient feature of Mexico's upcoming election this Sunday.
Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the chosen successor of current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO), is viewed as the frontronner and represents AMLO's left-leaning Morena party. Xochitl Gálvez, a businesswoman and former senator who represents the conservative National Action Party, is viewed as the next-strongest candidate. Jorge Álvarez Máynez, a former federal lawmaker in Mexico's Chamber of Deputies, represents the center-left Citizens' Movement and is predicted to finish third. A feature by Fabiola Sánchez of the Associated Press details how standards of living weigh on voters' minds and how AMLO's social programs have won support for his and Sheinbaum's party.
Foreign Policy's Catherine Osborn writes: "Although they stand for different political ideologies … the candidates agree on many gender-related issues. All three say they support the Mexican Supreme Court's 2023 decision to decriminalize abortion in federal health centers. They also promise to launch a publicly funded system to provide different types of care work and pledge to reduce gender-based violence. In Mexican politics today, openly criticizing feminism usually leads to candidates 'being canceled on social media and losing votes,' abortion rights lawyer Ninde Molina told Foreign Policy. Still, Molina and many other activists are approaching the milestone election with a mindset of determination rather than euphoria."
At CNN Opinion, Alice Driver—a writer and journalist who splits her time between Mexico and the US—draws a contrast with the US, where voters "face an uninspiring choice between two men, one who has worked to undermine reproductive rights and the other who has done little to defend them. Although the US has long claimed to be at the forefront of gender equality, in some respects, Mexico is leaving Americans in the dust." |
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Residents of Kharkiv initially dismissed word of a pending Russian advance, Ukraine-based volunteer Ada Wordsworth, co-founder of a project repairing homes in Eastern Ukraine, wrote last week in a Guardian op-ed. But on May 10, "the Russians finally recrossed the border and have captured over a dozen villages. On a walk with a local friend in Kharkiv [in mid-May], we noted how similar the tense atmosphere was to when we had first met in the city in the summer of 2022. There are some major differences, though. The use now of immensely powerful glide bombs, capable of creating craters as deep as nine-storey buildings, adds another layer of tension. The lack of faith in the west's support is another."
In another op-ed for The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash writes: "The mood in Ukraine is sombre these days. The casualties keep mounting. In the military cemetery in Lviv, I see widows and bereaved mothers sitting silently beside the fresh graves of their loved ones, heads bowed, a life sentence of suffering etched on their faces. Medical experts estimate that at least half the population is suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder."
At The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa notes a reversal in trends and expectations since the war's outset: "When Putin's initial war aims—the sacking of Kyiv and the overthrow of Zelensky—failed in the invasion's early days, it seemed as if a prolonged war would favor Ukraine. Zelensky didn't flee. The Russian Army was in disarray. The West proved more united than Putin imagined. But that logic reversed long ago. Even with a year's worth of U.S. weapons on the way, Ukraine cannot count on future aid packages, particularly if Donald Trump becomes President again. And for all the talk in Washington and in European capitals of the existential nature of the fight, they have not used the past two years to seriously upgrade or expand arms production." |
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Biden's Chinese EV Challenge |
President Joe Biden slapped heavy tariffs on Chinese clean-energy components this month, notably upping the rate to 100% on Chinese electric vehicles, which the US and Europe fear will flood their markets. The tariffs will take effect over the next two years.
At Foreign Policy, Robert A. Manning of the Stimson Center asks if Biden is deferring the hoped-for green-energy transition for the sake of protecting the US auto industry. "The winner of the escalating, zero-sum green technology trade war between the United States and China may well be climate change," Manning quips. New York Times economic-policy reporter Jim Tankersley notes the tension: "The apparent clash between climate concerns and American manufacturing has upset some environmentalists and liberal economists, who say the country and the world would be better off if Mr. Biden welcomed the importation of low-cost, low-emission technologies to fight climate change. Mr. Biden and his aides reject that critique. They say the president's efforts to restrict Chinese electric cars and other clean-technology imports are an important counter to illegal and harmful trade practices being carried out by Beijing."
Much of the economic fear centers on the low cost of Chinese EVs, "which retail elsewhere for as little as $10,000," Tankersley writes. In light of new US tariffs, the Financial Times' June Yoon predicts Chinese EV makers will turn toward Europe and that some will pivot toward luxury: "[O]ne thing is for certain: winning over Europe has just become that much more important for the future of Chinese EV groups. For these manufacturers, going the high-end route is now less a matter of choice than necessity to avoid getting caught up in a price war with BYD, China's largest EV maker that is leading global growth in the lower price segment." |
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A Manhattan jury has begun deliberating in former President Donald Trump's hush-money trial, where he stands accused of concealing payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair and better his chances in the 2016 election. (Trump denies both the charges and the affair.)
Attempts to predict the outcome are well underway. At The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett chronicles missteps made by both sides, including the possibility that Trump played too hefty a role in his defense strategy and star witness (and former Trump lawyer and fixer) Michael Cohen's seeming lack of preparation by the prosecution for particular questions. At Politico Magazine, senior writer and former white-collar federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori writes that it appears "the odds of Trump being convicted are fairly good—but not overwhelming. Perhaps slightly more likely than not." If Trump is convicted, Khardori writes, it will be either on the strength of Cohen's testimony or Trump's alleged centrality to the whole saga; if Trump is acquitted, it may be because of Cohen's weaknesses as a witness, notably his roundly questioned credibility. |
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