Report. Obviously a little rainy out there. Thank you for joining us for those here in the room. We have one of our speakers who is dealing with the challenge thats getting here and uber. She needs an uber boat instead of a regular uber to get here. Well go ahead and get started. We have webcast audience as well as cspan covering us today. Well go ahead and get going. Thank you all for braving the weather and joining us today. We appreciate that and our final panels is actually here right now. Welcome blanca and thank you for joining us. A year ago on july 1st, 53 of the vote and that was 30 points higher than the second place candidate. It was a landslide victory. Moreno, concept the Congressional Election and winning majority of the lower house and the senate in mexico. It was historic for him winning both. Together they have ruled mexico for the past 90 years. This was a significant change. I was in mexico city last year on the day of the elections going around and talking to people and watching the elections unfold. It was really remarkable to witness the level of optimism that existed on that day, july 1st, a year ago in mexico. You know the sense they were electing someone who could be trusted, who was different in many ways than those who had been in power of the previous several administration. Someone that represented them rather than the elites in mexico. Someone would fight for the common person. It was actually inspiring to see that level of optimism and be apart of that day. It was clear to me as a result of that also just how d disenfranchised many in mexico have felt. This was the first person who came from the left since the democratic election in mexico. There is a significant portion of the electorate that felt disenfranchise. That changed as a result of these Ground Breaking elections in mexico. There is also as many of us know stubbornly high poverty in mexico. And so this was a lot a president elected on a promise to reduce inequality and again leading people to feel apart of the system that they have rep presentation where people feel excluded. It is one year later, it is six mop mo months into the presidency itself. He took office in september of last year. People have High Expectations for this administration. The question now are those expectations being met. Are we on a path towards the meeting of those high ex pe expectatio expectations. We have great analysts here help us analyze how it is going so far and thats the general question of today. There are many ways to reflect on that. In terms of Public Opinion, the general sense is he continues to have a honeymoon period and high overall levels of popularity. We are glad to have jorge whos an expert in mexico and a pollster and a global fella here to have him join us today looking at the issues surrounding and looking at in more depth of the numbers in terms of Public Opinion. There may be some cracks on specific policy issues and specific things that the administration Und Administration had been under taken. The center piece of hamblos campaign, he was somebody that can be trusted more than other candidates and someone who would tackle the high level of corruption thats a challenge for mexico in terms of general public and security. We are glad to have with us, marianne, to reflect on progress made thus far. Thank you for coming. More than a change of the party in power. He promised a fourth transformation of mexico. A transformation of mexico on par with independence of spain and on par with the liberalizing reform of the 1860s and the mexican revolution that ran from 1910 onto maybe 1920. Those are huge levels of change that hes promising. He talked about regime change rather than a change of the party thats in power. The change in the structure of the way which mexico is governed, a representation of those who have been disenfranchise and fighting party and inequality and corruption and fighting on the strangle hold on power of what he describes as the mafia power and those elites that he describes as ruling mexico rather than people. He promises to make it a true democracy in that sense. We are delighted to have with us, blanca. That was a big issue area for me to lay in front of you to tackle. I am going to ask you how is that fourth transformation going. Thats a massive one obviously. Finally last but not least, well look at the mexican economy as a piece of this as well. Antonio works at stone bridge. But, it he is in charge of economics affair there. If we look at the longterm, it has been a mix story. It integrated into a Global Economy and becoming a global manufacture of power house but still have global poverty as i mention and remaining quite high. To have someone apart of the victory over the last 20 years, mexico achieving through fiscal speedomet responsibilities, we have a president who maintains fiscal responsibilities and change things dramatically in other ways. So i think it is a lot to dig into in terms of how investors are seeing mexico on the outside to slow down the mexican economy thats underway and how does it impact the ability to implement some of the social spending that it hopes to do and the infrastructure that it hopes to accomplish and mx, the state oil company has faced serious challenges these days. How does that fit into the economic picture and plans for the administration, we are looking forward to that. All of our panels have an interesting connection. At some point they are affiliated with cday, the Great Research of institutions in mexico city. We have a panel thats diverse in many ways but a Common Thread running throughout. We are delighted to have all of you. I am going to ask jorge if you can start. We have a presentation with a few slides. Jorge is going to do some slides because hes doing Public Opinion and it makes sense and well move into some Opening Statements by other panel lisis and have some time for questions among us and all of you. Jor jorge, the floor is yours. Thank you for the invitation, it is a pleasure to be here. I think interesting question is how popular is our president. Everyone is saying hes charismatic and popular. Sometimes we forget that he competed in 2006 and 2012. We have to put it into context what has happened with him. Hes certainly charismatic but he was not as popular as he is. I am going to try to put into context of his office and popularity and that seems to generate a discussion about his strength on the mexican republic. This is a bullet board. Many of the numbers here are available at the podium. Many of the figures i am going to be showing are this is a poll of polls. Right now the average is 70 of approval and 25 of disapproval. There are differences among polling firms, and this is the most recent number that we have, but we can expect that certainly he right now should be between 60 and 70 approval level, especially if you compare it with pena nietos very weak numbers, i mean this figure looks impressive. But if we put approval numbers in context, the picture is quite differe different. He at this stage phillipe calderon have more or less the same approval levels as Lopez Obrador right now. So certainly the exception to this is obviously pena nieto at the start of his governing with a severe economic crisis. Seem comparative perspective. I mean, they are high. They are astonishing numbers, but we must not forget that in the past president s have the same level. So the key question is what is different about Lopez Obrador, and i think that one main difference between the popularity of Lopez Obrador and calderon is intensity of approval. There are really a lot of strong Lopez Obrador supporters, and in the past with calderon folks, we didnt have the curtail effect of their popularity reflected in the numbers. In the midterm elections of calderon they had pretty good numbers between 55 and 60 , but wasnt able to win the majority in the midterm elections, and i think that the difference with Lopez Obrador is that the popularity of Lopez Obrador at this stage really reflects in the strength of electorate support for morena i think this is a key difference going into the future. We are very far from the midterm elections, but i show you later some numbers, but we can say more or less that 40 of the mexican public is really a strong Lopez Obrador supporter. This is not his highest number. Its been declining, but i think thats a key difference with the past so that approval for Lopez Obrador really has a very support that really bodes for morena, that if you take into account that and the greatness of the position that explains a lot of what is going on right now because unlike the past where the pri had the majority either in one of the legislative chambers or a majority of the governorships, right now what we have is a president that has a majority even though it is a plurality in the senate, has a majority in the senate, and the house of deputies. So what explains Lopez Obradors numbers, i could say that we sometimes commit the mistake of thinking that his approval levels are a reflection of what hes been doing, that his policies are either popular or those who are unpopular do not reflect in his approval levels, but if we go back a little bit further back, we can see that expectations are driving the approval levels of Lopez Obrador. This is an index of retrospective revelations of the economy. As you can see, it hasnt changed that much. It improved a little bit, expectations of the economy, but retrospective evolutions of the economy right now, and this is based in index of Consumer Confidence. I mean people do not think that the Current Situation of the economy, its much better. Actually, they are thinking that 41 the economys worse than one year ago. And 40 think that its better than one year ago, and these numbers are more or less similar to the ones that we had last november. But look what happens with expectations about the economy either personal economy or the countrys economy. They increase a lot after Lopez Obradors victory. So in that regard, what we are witnessing right now is that behind Lopez Obrador approval is our expectations but not reality or not its not something that he has delivered to the public, but people are expecting that he will deliver. And this is not something new for the Lopez Obrador administration. You can look in the case of calderon, for instance. Every time there is a change in government, expectations about the future of the country improve a lot. So i mean, in comparison terms, you can see that the expectations are more or less similar to the ones that we have regarding calderon, in that sense is the same pattern. Just take a look at what happened with expectations once this develops. All expectations begin to decline. Its very clear for all governments, so we should expect that the same thing is going to happen, and we should expect also that Lopez Obrador approval level will go down. This is a relation between approval levels and Consumer Confidence. Its an astonishing correlation because they are measuring more or less the same thing. Except with the case of phillipe calderon, in general Consumer Confidence index moves more or less than the proven levels and i think because they are more or less measuring the same stuff. We do not know what they are measuring, but its good to have an alternative measure to approval levels. These are approval levels for some policies. Sometimes they are his heesa lot of support or a lot of approval involving the war on the stealing of gasoline. Also, migration, show that people are supporting his heart, his tougher measures on migrants, so this is an issue thats probably it has not been politicized at the moment or become partisan, but people are really thinking that it is good to have a tougher stance on migrants. Its quite contradictory but the mexican public is not very tolerant of migrants. The thing is we havent had that many in the past in mexico or has not become an issue. But im going to i just want to stress this point. When we try to explain the approval levels of Lopez Obrador. I mean, to try to understand what has changed, i could say to that some extent his honeymoon is a consequence of the Electoral Campaign just being over. If you look at the his approval numbers or the evaluation of the people, it increase a lot after the election on the side of independen independence. So before the election everybody was looking at Lopez Obrador through a partisan lens. Once he wins election, partisan bias is deactivated so that explains why his approval levels jump a lot. But the key question here is that once we get closer to another election its probably that they will begin to look at him in a more critical way, and we should expect that as we get closer to the midterm elections that will also influence his approval levels, and just to finish, this is a segmentation of the mexican public in terms of level of support for Lopez Obrador. This is the latest one we have about one month, one month and a half, and as you can see there is about 40 of the mexican public the one that its in blue, that is a really strong supporters. There are some weak supporters and there is 26 of the mexican public that is really against Lopez Obrador. If you look at in comparison with the beginning of his term, numbers have shifted a lot and especially after february or february after the war on there was an increase in support for him, but this has declined so currently we have 39 of strong amlo supporters, 35 are weak amlo supporters. That makes above 70 , its a pretty good number, but its not the same to be a strong amlo, supporter or weak amlo supporter, especially with support for morena at the polling booth. Also we can see right now the numbers are similar to what we had before. So at some extent one part of the honeymoon is over at least it seems. Approval levels are more or less similar to what we had in november and probably what we are going to see that until the end of the year, we will be looking at numbers that were more or less similar to the ones that we had before he won the election. So we should expect and this has happened in other terms, that Lopez Obrador approval levels will still cut down and probably stabilize around october, november and i will stop. Thank you so much. That was excellent. Great way to get us started. Blanca can i turn to you next to talk about the transformation . Then we can dive more into some specific issue areas after that. Well, thank you for the invitation to be here. It is a pleasure to be with the city of the 90s also and very close and dear colleagues. On june 1st, 2018, Andres Manuel lop lop Lopez Obrador was elected president. What started the following day is still bereft of a common name. This matters because it makes straightforward analysis and assessment more complex. What political phenomenon has been playing itself out in mexico since july 1st, 2018. Is it five months of transition, plus seven months of no president ial administration . Is it a peaceful revolution . Is it regime change, or as the president never tires of reminds us, its the fourth transformation. When the meaning of words and the name of things is widely shared, concerning oneself with them might be fascinating, but it is dispensable. In context where the links among words meanings and empirical reference are thrown into disarray, however, the semantic becomes openly political and the conditions for recent debate rapidly erode. An eloquent example of the unsettled semantic times we live in is the nonconversation between amlo and his liberal critics about corruption. Both use the same term. Both see the thing as an an lloyd evil that needs to be extracted from the countrys body politic as fast fast as possible. But coincidence stops right there. For the liberal opposition, corruption is conjugated in essentially legal terms. Lopez obrador in contrast understands corruption not as a legal problem, i repeat, not as a legal problem but as a strictly moral one. Given that were living in this peculiarly unsettled and unsettled semantical context, by the way, not only in mexico, here and in many other parts of the world very much so, too, i want to use this space to call your attention to the value of minding words, premises and frames of reference and of making them explicit. What name we decide to give the political thing unfolded in mexico one year ago matters a lot, because it ends up defining what other instances of thing we deem it comparable to. And also, it defines what criteria and metrics we employ to assess it, and ultimately what decisions we take in relation to it, not to speak of which emotional buttons it press us with. Treating the year running from july 2018 to june 2019 in mexico, five months transition, and seven months no president ial administration is useful for assessing very important matters and im sure my colleagues will do this today. Ill take a different lens. But first let me illustrate the analytical value shifting frames of reference assumed to be obvious on the only possible ones to appropriately apprehend a given social object. In its brilliant analysis of the chinese economic miracle, juan hui as you know chinas most contemporary public intellectual starts out by arguing that the most relevant and fertile frame of reference and comparison to answer this question is to place chinas embrace of the market in context of the disintegration of the soviet union and its satellite countries. Such frame is not the first one to come to mind, not to mine anyway. The obvious ones are say the fast growing northeast asian economies or india or some abstract model of Economic Growth, but the collapse of communist countries, how could that possibly be relevant for answering the question of high china managed in 30 years to bring out of poverty 650 Million People, human beings . One whose article is subtle and very complex, but in a nutshell to answer the question of what explains chinas economic miracle, he first poses and addresses a different question, and that is why didnt china collapse as all other communist countries . Well, the soviet union was disintegrating, china had min his answer because the Chinese Revolution built a National State whose social basis was the vast majority of the chinese people. That very strong state was able not only to retain political control despite dire Economic Conditions but also to launch a process of economic modernization and to act in a relatively neutral sense in social terms. That is not just defending say capital, but rather defending and supporting at least initially the overwhelming majority of the chinese population, and thus promoting and allowing for a rapid momentous and inclusive process of economic modernization and growth unparalleled in human history. My frame of reference for reflecting upon politics and government to president ial election last year is to use the larger category of comparable phenomenon, a larger category of comparable phenomenon. All of them all of which have to do with the social, political, and cultural backlash against neo liberal globalization in countries around the world. We could also call it modernization. Western style. This long, longterm process that started sometime in the end of the 18th century and it has been very violent including in the now developed north. We have conveniently edited all of the violence, but in fact, it is a process of modernization of this country included that was not smooth and soft. This backlash comes in different formats and versions just as the most recent backlash at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, also come in different formats, communi communism were not the same thing, social democracy certainly were not, but they were all backlashes against the first globalization. This time around, what we have in this backlashes against neo liberal globalization are things like islamic radicalism and its reflections, trump, brexit, neo nazis in germany and elsewhere and of course i would say amlo and his fourth transformation. Lopez obradors style and mode of exercising political power shares important features with all of these instances of antiglobalizati antiglobalization, among them the personal centrality of the leader, the centrality of the discourse of the people against the villain, in some cases its elites as in the mexican case. Those that are different from us, the centralization of political power, the disregard if not outright weakening of independent institutions and political counter weights, the lack of interest and lack of respect for the law. Now the mexican version of this populous backlash has also some distinctive features. One of its most distinctive features, particularly in relation to the rest of the instances that are now present in the world is that its clear orientation in favor of the have n nots without a clear external enemy or a clear other enemy. Its against the mexican elites. Indications of it are the massive budgetary shift in the favor in favor of the poorer segments in the population, the raise in the minimum wage and very major label reform. A president that speaks like them and speaks to them, another particularity as i mentioned briefly, but this is, i think, crucial, and contrast for instance with the pink la rosa of the previous populous wave in latin america on the left, mexican amlo is not, in fact, shows an aversion to confrontation with the u. S. , and finally, another not too common characteristic of this political regimes strong commitment to fiscal discipline and monetary stability. Understood as an idiosyncratic expression of the populous movement and fueling the anger and anxiety accumulated over 30 years of harrowing economic, social, and cultural dislocations produced by the drive for democracy in open markets in left behind countries, marked by abysmal inequalities in wealth, income, live use and opportunities, amlos regime in the making provides a version though not necessarily pretty, might not be as ugly a many others. Most importantly, in my mind, it is more this thing is more akin to a regime change or a peaceful revolution than to a regular beginning of a new president ial administration. Having characterized amlos regime of one version of this antineo liberal backlash occurring in many parts of the world, i now want to very briefly provide a preliminary assessment in his first year of command in terms of what he ms p promised and what he argues is his primary motivation and goal, namely to engineer a mayor institutional balance of social power, operative everything being balance of social power and cultural transformation in favor of the poor, the working classes and the socially excluded as well as of the basic rules that make it impossible for them to stop being so. Let me repeat. Its not in the positive. Its in the negative. He wants to dismantle the basic set of rules that make it impossible for this excluded sectors to stop being excluded. So its a major transformation of one aimed at the root social causes and tied institution gnat knots, bottlenecks. It is a strong and deeply uncomfortable transformation of the fwoelgoals priorities, and instruments of government in favor of all but especially of the poor. A move, that is, towards goals and aspirations that are not the ones that we have grown accustomed to thinking as those everybody desires. I dont have time but obviously the clearest expression of this symbolic condensation of the neo liberal dream going down the window is the cocoairport. A deep break understood finally as a new pair of eyeglasses to look at and organize our experience of the world, a new lens which to describe and interpret things, and critically important, a sense of moral compass to provide grounding and meaning to both individual and collective choice. Deploying such framework on the positives. Hard realism and pragmatism in relation to macroeconomic stability, relationship to the United States and use of force and coercion in trying to regain territorial control veisavis organized and disorganized crime. Forms and symbols associated with the exercise of political power, clear strong and very swift though not very well executed shift in the governments attention in favor of the poor, marginalized and excluded. Willingness to break out of the standard record book, decisiveness and speed, dismantling and or budgetary asphyxiation of the units and structures, many of which siphoned fiscal resources for private gain, but most importantly that made it impossible to have a functional relationship between social demand for Government Services and Government Services. Return of the matter of morality to the public space, incredible after our moral complete bankruptcy during the last administration, but its back. In some on the positive side, widening limits of the possible, of the realm of the possible and a return of the inadmissible. On the negatives, weakness if not absence of a project of a program for the desirable future as well as of plan for getting there. Notice here the telling selection on his own part of fourth transformation of the name of amlos project. Emphasis on the transformation, not on the destination. A strong resistance against institutional limits, formal rules, independent centers of power, and different point of views in some authoritarian tendencies. Strong bureaucratic governmental capabilitie capabilities, complete disregard in this particular regard very similar to mr. Mow. Four, disregard if not full disdain for technical and expert knowledge. Large costs material and symbolic imposed i would say a bit unnecessarily and very bad idea on the middle classes, which could end up feeding the type of anxiety and resentment you in this country know very well and that offers the perfect breeding soup for the extreme right, and six, an emphasis at least so far on destroying institutions and arrangements regarded essential obstacles standing in the way of social economic, cultural order conducive to social inclusion in some, on the liabilities column, more emphasis on destruction of existing arrangements than attention to construction of new ones and strong propensity to disregard and or disqualify opposing centers of power, legal limits and expert knowledge. Closing up, after many months of almost obsess ively trying to understand on my part what lopez thinks wants and means, i see his young self borrowing brilliant word and image as an alienated young man of promise in a very long line of similar wants. Mow, peron, stalin, mussolini. Ones that felt shuned and excluded from societies that scorned them and that produced and that underwent social havoc in the tales of the promise for individual freedom and opportunity in places marked by enormous differences in wealth, status, income, and education. Today i see him as a man endowed with enormous power based on votes, yes, but also on the support of millions of mexicans long excluded, exemployploited edited away. As a president , yes, but also as a political leader riding and steering so far steering, the anger, resentment, and hopes of millions. In terms of the types of political phenomenon, i see a populist regime in the making, situated in the left side of the political spectrum, which makes it quite unique in the world today. That combination, antiglobalization, backlash thats on the left, i can only think of amlo, in fact. In my balance of what has happened so far in relation to what he promised on the positives in some very clear widening of the limits of the possible and return of the inadmissible on the negatives, complete much more attention to destruction and complete disregard for institutional legal limits and expert knowledge. All in all, summing it all up, what i see in these last 12 months is an opportunity, an opportunity i know i will not see again in my life time. An opportunity to break away from the shackles of perpetually stalled and deformed development that concentrates all of the goodies in a minuscule field. An opportunity no more but no less, no certainty that it will in fact translate into more possibility future. Most probably a lot of continued destruction, most probably for the full six years and little Economic Growth, but hopefully continued macroeconomic stability, no further deterioration of the security mayh mayhem, and ideally some modest gains in that terrain. But let us hope that that opportunity that will most probably will be very destructive in the next few years does, in fact, provide the setting for building a more just country. Finishing, we are living not only in mexico, pe kulularly anxious and angry times. Vast swaths of people in numerous countries around the world are saying enough of your global modernization drive. We want protection from fear and extreme uncertainty. We want to know we can put food on the table every day. We want to be seen. We want to be heard. Some are saying it in electoral booths, others by blowing themselves up. Others still by fleeing their countries of birth and risking it all in journeys of hell. For elites understand are also jarring and uncomfortable times. This political arrangements and the political arrangements instructors that help sustain the latest and broadest ever drive for western style progress and modernization are becoming undone. Elites are resisting, obviously, and will continue to do so. No emperor likes it when his clothes fade or disappear. Our version of this backlash powered by the forgotten many is an opportunity, i hope, we may not waste it. Thank you very much, blanca. Miriam, the floor is yours. Thank you, christopher, and thank you all of you for being here. Participating again here and with this panelists. Blancas piece is very provocative. I know blanca well enough and for many years not to believe that she wouldnt like mow but also i know her well now to know that she wants to see a more successful country, a more successful or by successful meaning more opportunities, more egalitarianism, more peaceful, more homogeneous society, more competitive, and the rest. So indeed as jorge has shown, has high level of support not very different from fox and calderon, however, much more intense, yes. Unfortunately i do believe that support does not have as one of its collateral effects or secondary well, collateral effects neither sound economic or social policies nor the strengthening of democracy. It often brings on the side consequences and spillover or side effects which may be difficult to reverse for some time, okay . How much progress is the question of this seminar or yeah, the question posed by this seminar, and that depends on what we understand by progress. Progress can be measured by what the president promised in his ig inaugural address, by his Campaign Political manifesto or by other standard measures. But lets take the first one, yeah . What he promised, and what apparently hes aiming at. Amlo has stated many his last discourse that he has already met 78 of his 100 promises, and that safe security and health he recognizes more difficulties than he had originally or initially judged. He will deliver a peaceful country and a health system, quote, unquote, comparable to those of scandinavian countries. We take this as a guide on the 100 promises he made. I think we should divide them into those which do not require much effort and time or money like leaving the residence and opening it to the public. Decreeing the salary, selling the Government Air fleet, and flying in personal airlines, reduction of personal stuff to high rank officials and disappearance of privileges such as private Health Insurance to all Public Servants or even disappearing the central guard. And those thats one set of measures, and those that take a much longer careful decisionmaking and especially a longer maturing process, Like Universal Health and in corruption, impunity, making productive public company, obtaining food and energy selfsufficiency, reduction of violence, or high growth rates. In this last he has very little to show. The former he has delivered but in no meaningful sense can we say that he has something to show regarding the three issues highlighted since his campaign, in security, inequality, and corruption. Nonetheless, i do believe that it would be inappropriate to pass judgment on the new administration by the results thus far. I wouldnt expect security indexes to fall, yes, i wouldnt expect the mexican economy to be growing after seven months of andres Lopez Obrador, or corruption to disappear, although he claims that corruption has altogether disappeared. In spite of the apparent blitzkrieg that we have witnessed in the first seven months or in the first year since he won the election, i believe honestly that it is too soon to judge results by either Growth Investment in equality and security perception of corruption or whatever. The question is not whether mexico is any better than it was seven months ago. But if there are reasons to think it would be better anytime soon or even in the medium term given his policies. In this sense id like to claim that it is not too soon to judge trends, and that is what im going to do. Judge trends and use process parameters to appraise where this government is going, and here are my substantial and i hope substantiated worries. So the first question is whether Lopez Obradors administration is head ing in the direction in order to obtain his proclaimed goals, whether the policies hes announcing as hes following are prone to produce the expected results, and i couldnt agree more with Lopez Obrador that he received a country in ruins regarding his three axis of policy making, violence, inequality and corruption, and that growth has been all but disappointing disappointing in what he calls 30 years or so of neo liberal rules. Yet his policies do not seem to have the potential to produce anything better than we have seen in the last 30 years. Regarding security, there is a consens consensus, im not a specialist. Ive read a lot, but im not a specialist, but there is a consensus among them that there is no strategy that differs from what other president s have attempted, particularly what has been called calderons war against crime. Unlike calderon who failed to create a National Police because he couldnt get the opposition and governors to agree, he has said the national guard, but as Previous Administrations there are no signs of any integrated strategy that includes prevention, protection of the population against common and organized crime, nor a criminal policy, believer it or not, that includes coordination of Investigative Police sufficient prosecutors and a fairly Efficient Administration of justice. In the field of inequality, the second field he wants to face, he has launched a huge set of programs that are bent on giving cash to the poorest, but to my knowledge assistance has never taken a country out of poverty or improved opportunities for the population. Again, i stand with Lopez Obrador in the idea of making certain rights universal, but for them to be sustainable, you need much more than handing out money, which by the way is associated with neo liberal policies. The voucherization of the or the social policy. Social policy is not the summing up of a handful of programs that certainly alleviate a very impoverished and needy society. Social policy, to my knowledge, is a set of guidelines of principl principles, legislation, and activities that affect conditions conducive to human welfare, and that is not what we are witnessing. What we are witnessing is the creation of literally millions of citizens receiving not better social services, nor making good the promises of all the rights mexicans are entitled to by constitution, but simply resources to all of the aleve yay tors and very impoverished society. Along this comes the attainment of a very wide, grateful political base, which can have big political returns. In my calculation, taking into account only the seven most publicized social programs, 23 Million People will be receiving resources from this from government by the end of 2020. This amounts to 26 of the voters in 2021, intermediate elections. However, if we take as a starting points the voting right to intermediate elections, they amount to 52 of the projected votes. It has political gains but not economic or social gains, not even for the people to whom these programs are directed. Finally, corruption and well, and one other thing regarding social programs. He has, in fact, and i believe it is very good thing, a will the of intermediaries of for giving out these social programs. However, he has become the sole interimmedia intermediary for all these resources so everyone knows or everyone believes that Lopez Obrador, that is handing out this very welcomed help. Finally, corruption and impunity. Aside from saying that the new president is honest, that he will not stand for corruption, that corruption is forbidden and that people have good hearts and if authorities set the example, they will not incur corrupt behavior. Yes, anticorruption and antiimpunity punishes have been either absent or disappointing. Blanca is right. She does not treat corruption as a legal matter, not even as a matter of incentives, yeah. And he claims that we change morality, we will change. Also, this corruption, this systemic corruption in the mexican society, in mexican businessmen and in the mexican public. It is not only to the surprise of many he has proposed not to prosecute the past corruption crimes or that he has repeatedly said that corruption needs little more than political will to be banned but that practically the only measure he has to wanted in reforming corruption actions into grave how do you say . Very serious. Felony crimes, basically. Felony crimes, that by law will not have the benefit of going through trial and liberty. Just imagine what that can mean in mexico, yes . That you can be put into jail just because they point at you to have committed an alleged corruption act. Also, i must mention that the past corruption and impunity as a high priority, i really cannot understand the project reductions in precisely those agencies that have to deal with these matters. 11 reduction to the judiciary, 5. 5 to the attorney General Office, and General Office that has to be built from scratch, a 16 to the financial unity, 40 to the Anticorruption Prosecutors Office. In fact, the Anticorruption Prosecutors Office has 12 people all in all including the head of it and the driver of the new prosecutor. Okay, and 24 to the governmental internal affairs secretary. Yeah. So i really dont know. I do believe that resources in mexico have been used in a very bad way, yeah, and that theres a lot of room to reduce budget, but why especially in this, and all of this has not gone to social programs or to social budgets, but social budgets grew by 9 regarding last year. The second question i refer to at the beginning is whether am low, weather Lopez Obrador is conducting himself within the most basic democratic parameters in the exercise of power, and here the trends are not encouraging. Elector legit ma psy, high popularity do not mean a blank check to the president. There are contradictory signals to say the least regarding the rule of law. Blanca mentioned it. On the one side, one of his favorite sayings is that nothing and no one is above the law, but on the other side he says, if you have to choose between justice and the law, do not hesitate. Choose justice. That means in a country like mexico, yes, that hes pushing the citizenry to do justice by its own hand, and to justify justice by your own hand. That was very characteristic of andr Andres Manuel lopez oeb ra da when he was mayor. In the sense that if i do not believe and i dont believe that taxes in mexico are fair, yes, i really dont understand why i have to pay the same as say mr. Aslim, or mr. Salinas or whoever, yes, i pay the same rate. I dont know how many less i earn than they do, but that does not give me the right, yes, to pay less. I have to pay my 35 rate, yes . But if he allows me, the president says its okay to do that, well, then lets do it. The ridge of law is becoming troublesome. In a recent piece of research, i registered at least 20 actions which can be deemed openly skplelegal and another seven of contested legality or illegality. They range from the widely criticized memorandum where the president commands three of his secretaries to cancel all measures resorts from the education reform approved in the Previous Administration by the Previous Legislature to refra refraining from of making good all the regulations that derived from that reform, yes. Another one, refraining, for example, from freeing the trade tracks blocked by one of the teachers unions in 27 days. By saying that his is not a repressive government, yes, but affecting the economy in many, many, many thousands of millions of dollars or from conducting a census with Party Members and launching a mock popular for projects outside the constitutional procedure. We have a constitutional procedure for popular consultation but he makes his popular consultations to his liking. Other measures are like vetoing three pharmaceutical companies, maybe they are corrupt, yes, but we have an institution that decides whether they have they hold monopoly power or not. Yes well he vetoed three pharmaceutical companies from competing in a governmental bidding. My count is 20 of these type of measures, plus another seven since the 31st of may. Many executive orders and past legislation have been brought to the highest courts under the argument that they are unconstitutional, violate from the mental rights or the invasion of authority granted to other brachnches of powers or s National Levels of government. To my knowledge, and ive been doing the counting, in the last four governments, no other one bought Lopez Obrador has so many lawsuits in the courts. So today there are seven lawsuits for unconstitutionality, 34 contusional controversies, and literally thousands of individual appeals against different executive decisions. Some claim, however, that to produce a grand transformation, like ive already mentioned it, the law has to be bent or even disregarded. I do not agree. We dont like the laws, if we believe they are unjust, amlo has the best opportunity to change these laws because he has both a simple and constitutional majority in the Lower Chamber and a simple majority in the senate. But it is not only the alleged shift away from the rule of law that concerns some of us. It is also the process of concentration and centralization of power underway. The increasing powers in budgetary matters. In the recent public law approved by the senate last week, there is a transitory article that mandates the amendment of the budget and spending responsibility law to expand the already wide discretionary spepd spending powers of the executives, and it says literally, im quoting, that all the savings can be used by whatever to whatever is the objective the president wants, just by decree. It is also the contempt of the rulings of the men in mexico, the attempt to capture autonomous agencieagencies, eit through budget reductions, the violation of the principle of presumption of innocence, the erosion, the constant disqualification on moral grounds of what he calls enemies of change or the disdain of knowledge, experts and best policy practices. All of these because they are deemed obstacles to the will of the president and the wisdom of the people. Finally, there is a growing personalization of power that have adverse consequences on the daily work of the Public Administration and that customize or brand also programs and decisions. Nobody claims that institutions in mexico were sufficiently strong or that they were not in need of reform, and nobody claims that all the above mentioned practices were absent in Previous Administrations. However, the man that claims that hes performing the fourth transformation is using all those practices of the last 36 years, and instead of strengthening or readdressing, restructuring these institutions and these practices, the tendency has been to weakening or putting them aside. So no, i am not nos tall jtalgi pastimes and i am aware of the chronic capitalism that prevails in mexico, and im fully aware of the malfunctioning of our institutions. What i want to argue is that the trends we are seeing do not constitute progress, nor correspond to our promised transformation or to what Lopez Obrador himself calls a true democracy. In some trends more than results are not promising or reassuring. And returning to the question of the seminar, i would conclude that, no, that most of Lopez Obradors policies together with the team he has chosen to further them are ill equipped to attain the desire results. It is a pity that his policies dont seem the right ones to transform the country. For the first time in 21 years, he has all the instruments and all the power to get all of these things done. No other president has had the congress on his side. No other president has been able to do all of these organizations, no other president has had the legitimacy Lopez Obrador has. And here i do not agree with blanca, i do not believe that he seeks modernization, but regression in very many senses to what we had in the 60s, and i want to end with this. Yeah, apparently we have a president from the left but we have a leftist president without policies associated with the left, lowering wages, reducing salaries reducing the state, handing out cash and he does not even hold the social agenda in terms of egalitarian marriages or prochoice. He furthers financial stability. I mean, i agree with all of these things, but hes not a leftist government in the terms that up to now we think policies that should be furthered by the by the left, and we have and i will talk about it when we come to the kbquestions, and we have also the returns or worries on the electoral, on the coming electoral front. Not only because of the laws that hes promoting but also because we dont have the first ingredient after the rule of law, to have a working democracy, which is opposition in mexico. Thank you. Thank you very much. To antonio its all yours. Thank you, chris, and also great to be here with your friends and colleagues. And i provided a various set of deep and thoughtful framework. What ill do is get a bit more down into the weeds in terms of what i was asked to do. I was asked to share my thoughts on the prospects for the mexican economy one year after amlos victory. I will do them in a bit of a telegraphic manner, and ill be glad to get into the details in the q a section. The first thing one could do when looking for prospects is to look at the estimates, you know. And given that Christine Lagardes been in the news, she will be the new head of the ecb. She visited president Lopez Obrador, i decided to take the imf estimates. Late last year the estimate was for 2. 3 growth for this year, and in april of this year, the imf downgraded that to 1. 6 for this year. There are many lower estimates by other institutions, have around 1 and even lower than 1 . To give you some perspective, the growth for the pen ya nieto was 2. 4 and growth of first year was about 1. 4 . So if the Current Trends prevail, the growth during the Lopez Obrador will be 2. 3 , which is exactly the same than the pena nieto growth, and i think thats a problem because the think thats the problem. The basic aim of the Lopez Obrador obama administratiadmin have stability and growth. Previous comforts we had low growth and the per capita growth has been flat for decades. I think thats ethically wrong, unnecessary and unstainable. Thats wrong, per capita growth. I think its possible for the mexican economy to grow by 4 , but some things would need to change. Saying that, let me turn briefly to Monetary Policy. I do not have concerns about Monetary Policy during the current Lopez Obrador administration. The bank of mexico, the central bank is independent, will remain independent and some of my colleagues have intimated this is in many senses a conservative government. So from a Monetary Policy perspective, especially inflation perspective, the government is conservative and it likes to say inflation is slow. One thing to look out for is two of the current five members are guaranteed to remain in their post until the end. So a majority will have a changeover from now until the end. Will the changeover in the board of governors imply change in policy . I dont know. But thats not where i lose some sleep. To be frank, im not concerned. Lets turn to fiscal policy. Again, this is a conservative government. I am not concerned about irresponsible fiscal spending in terms of the amount of spending. My concern is where money spent and where the budget is cut. Im not looking at, you know, at the budget deficit in terms of theres no big deficit were fine. Im not sure thats the right way to assess things. I do believe that there was a lot of corruption. I think theres still a lot of corruption and inefficiency and that some cuts were necessary. I think some of them were perhaps not too wise, especially the weakening of the state. The government has ambitious economic plans and it needs a strong and capable and independent state. It needs strong and capable and independent regulatory institutions in energy, in tell come and other areas, otherwise it will be difficult to implement these reforms. I think the budget cuts have weakened the federal government. Have weakened independent regulatory institutions. And it will make it very difficult for the government to fulfill its aims. In the middle to the longer term, i am a bit concerned about fiscal policy. Because the president has said he would not increase taxes and he would not increase the debt in relative terms. So if gdp is slow, then the absolute amount of money that will be available is low. What will happen then, i dont know. Will the governor return to International Loans or be not as careful with the fiscal stance . I dont know. But i think there is a problem brewing in the medium to longer term. Thirdly, let me share my views on how mexico is perceived by Foreign Investors. I have been in this business for incredible now, now that i think of it, dont have a lot of hair now, 29 years. So i do think i have a perspective about how Foreign Investors look at mexico. And i would say that they are less concerned about many things that people in mexico think they should be concerned about. They dont follow as the foreign called it here, theyre not concerned about the twitterssphere. Its a lot of noise. They focus on a lot of countries, theyre not too concerned about that, but they are concerned about some things. The cancellation of construction of the new Mexico City Airport did create a lot of concerns. Not because of the cancellation per se, but because of the way it was cancelled. It was mentioned an ad hoc consultation that was not done according to mexico law. And we have laws that provide for consultations, so it was not the cancellation per se, but the way it was cancelled and the changing reasons for the cancellation. There was corruption, its too luxurious, its not the best option, its too expensive. Thats what created a problem. And i would say that the second most contentious issue since then is the recent conflict between federal Electricity Commission and a number of national and International Energy companies. I was the head of Economic Affairs at the Mexican Embassy for about nine years and one thing i remember very well was, in february 2013, and im talking about the peno administration, a legislature was about to introduce an amendment to modify the concession for mexican railroads and under that amendment the idea was to change the rules under which the concession could be revoked. It could be for tax issues or if the railroad operators were not offering rates that the government wanted. And believe me, i got a number of calls and they were not very friendly calls and they said, you just implemented a series of reforms on telecoms, energy, et cetera, mexico will not receive investment if they keep changing the rules. And i think that the cancellation of the Mexico City Airport and the contentious situation between these Energy Companies are along the same lines of what happened. Why are these Foreign Investors concerned . Not because there could be an arbitration. It is normal to have disputes. All free trade agreements have dispute mechanisms. It is normal to go to arbitration. Thats why contracts have arbitration clauses. What is not normal is to use an arbitration clause to try to renegotiate contract. Its not to clarify a difference, an interpretation. Its i know what the contract says, i dont like the terms of the contract and i will renegotiate the contract. Not only that, but theres a pipeline that has been finished and cfe is not, you know, decreeing that it is ready to operate, and therefore paying operator, right, as a way to exert leverage in the negotiations. And that means that manufacturers are not receiving badly gas they need. And im sure gas exporters from the u. S. And canadian investors are not terribly happy. Again, it is normal to have disputes, disagreements, but the nature of the disagreement and the stance taken by some in the government is what is creating a lot of concern, and im sure that Canadian Companies are concerned. I dont think its easy to upset the canadians, but the canadian ambassador to mexico was, you know, very upset about this. And he was talking about, you know, the need to establish predictability, stability and rules to respect contract. Mexico will soon have a new agreement with the eu and theyre trying to diverse few, smartly, their foreign relations. And europeans will be looking at this and the members of the cpttp agreement will be looking at this, including canada. So i think this is troubling to see this. The good news is that, you know, there are negotiations ongoing and hopefully arbitration will be avoided and a decision will be reached. But this is the sort of thing i think that the government cannot really afford, if it really wants to attract vast amounts of investment to increase growth rates. Very briefly on the usmca and then some concludes comments. You know, i do believe the usmca will ultimately be rad radified when i have no idea, i dont think chris does either. The aim behind the usmca, the reason why canada and the u. S. Wants it and the reason the Lopez Obrador wants it is because it provides certainty. And mexico is very much relying on its trade and investment relations with the north american partners, especially the u. S. But the u. S. Is now a source of uncertainty. It is a very different world from when we negotiated nafta, right. Or even when obama was president. Theres uncertainty in europe and we have plex it. So the Global Political economy is in flux. This is global change. I think this is plates moving and we will go back to the old way of doing things. One way to create certainty among an ocean of uncertainty that will remain uncertain for a number of years is through the usmca. I think the Mexican Government has a big opportunity to create certainty within this environment of uncertainty. I would say that the usmca will not be enough to generate certainty. I think at the end of the day, International Businesses are not so much concerned as the rules per se or terms of contract per se as the fact that the rules be respected, procedures be respected, as maria said, and there are no surprises. Im sure given the strong concentration of power that Lopez Obrador has, he could get good deals from Foreign Investors if there is a credibility that he would stick with the deal no matter what. And this would make mexico very attractive to Foreign Investment because it needs to grow at high rates, tragic investment and other areas are not growing at high rates at all. If he attracts interest from Foreign Investors they would be willing to play ball as long as he says i respect the terms and there are no surprises. So there is still time to have stability and growth, but i do think that the government needs to really make sure that theres stability, credibility, predictability in terms of the way it engages with domestic investors and with foreign inve investors. Ill leave it at that. As you all see, there is this connection among these panelists but very different perspectives on the issues at hand. Most importantly on what terms we should be judging, even, this new administration. Thats a fundamental question. Should we be judging the administration and understanding issues of Public Opinion and popularity as in line with Previous Administrations, can we say that trends from the past will hold true in the present . Or is this a true regime change and a great tectonic shift in mexico and should it be judged on different terms outside of the framework we traditionally referenced. Should we judge it on gdp per capita as a measure where things are going on the ability of the administration to reach its stated goals in terms of anticorruption, inequality and other and violence and security. Those are massive questions. We have basically run out of time. We did start a little bit late so lets make sure we get to the audience. I think what were going to do is just take a few questions from the audience and come back one time each to the panelists to address whichever pieces of that they can. Well to do it all in lightning format, a brief round in order to respect peoples time. I had had a billion questions, but im going to sort of pose one of my own to throw out there as a piece of the conversation and you all can get to that, as well as the questions from the audience. It does seem to me that transformation, if thats the goal is sort of this deeper type of transformation does require Popular Support, continued Popular Support in democracy. And i think theres just a huge question as to whether or not, given everything that each of you have stated, its possible to maintain a level of Popular Support to continue with this process of transformation given the challenges that you brought up in terms of focussing on professional Public Administration, the ability to deliver on things based on the quality of people in place and sort of allowing professionals to do their job at a more minute level but also based on the economic environment, the Global Economic environment, along with the economic environment locally within mexico put forward by the policies of the administration. And then the other piece of this, though, is is there an opposition that can capitalize, in terms of popularity if the president and the administration fails to deliver on some of these important areas, and, you know, the state of the pun in the pri right now is very much in disaray, so i have questions about the sustainability of the popularity of this administration, but also the ability to capitalize on that loss of popularity. I wonder if you think about the ability to continue on that framework. And let me open it up to you to take some of your questions as well. Please just identify yourself and be concise in your question. Thank you. American university. My question is, what is it we are observing, on one side you mentioned hes looking for excluded people but on the other hand we saw he eliminate progress. You said that he is tried to finally put in his place, but he make a consul, you said that he is promoting, finally, the end but the upside of that, hes maintaining the public finance, trade. So im not clear what is we are watching and if the policies really will help to end the poverty in mexico. Thats one of the things, as you said, for the best of everybody . Is there another question . We have one more up here. Howard woolridge. When you talk about ending corruption in mexico, the cartels are still bringing back about 40 billion across the border, isnt it more of a pipe dream to think about ending corruption in mexico when you have the corrosive influence of the cartels . Thanks for that question. And one final question here in the back. Right there. I would like to know identify yourself. Doing some research in Georgetown University about migration in mexico. I would like to know what are the innovations in your views about migration . Thank you. Thanks very much. So we have a different range of questions, you all can jump in to the ones you see most fit for yourselves. Well go back down the line. Jorge, why dont you start. Regarding if theres going to be enough support for reforms, i think that without Economic Growth and i agree with antonio that if we dont have gdp growth, its going to be very difficult for Lopez Obrador to sustain healthy approval level. Also in security, its really bad. It doesnt seem that its going to change. So i dont think that we have the fundamental the fundamentals are not right for Lopez Obrador to sustain a high level of approval. And in so far as that doesnt happen, we should expect that people begin to be alienated towards his government, although a key difference here is that, as i mentioned in the representation, hes going to have a very strong base of support. His loyals, people that have been following him from 15, 18 years, so we should expect that his bottom line should be about 30, 35 of his strong support from the mexican people and then you will have probably 10, 15 of the mexican population that will still support him even in bad times. But 50 of approval level, its nothing exceptional in the mexican experience, but im curious a big if, with 35, 40 of electoral support, will win most of the important elections in mexico. I think this is a key difference with the past. How approval levels are nothing exceptional, support for moreno is not exceptional but the position has never been this weak. In the past, during the calderon or even pino governments, you have an opinion that was alive and kicking. Just to give you an example, this is the first time that the measure of mexico city belongs to the party of the president. And that means that for in terms of a position, theres no one thats going to criticize from mexico citys major office. No one is going to criticize the president. That was the role, that was the platform that pulled Lopez Obrador into the spotlight, that he was the main opposition. And marcel also became a very important figure. Likewise, governors in the past or states wearing the hands of the position, mostly the pri governors which actually were highly popular. So they were a real position to the party of the president and just think about enrique piento by 2004 and by 2006, 2007, was already a popular figure that was a counterweight to the c calderon government. I think that its only a slight chance to capitalize on the position of Lopez Obrador but after the past president ial elections, the position is very weak. So in the past the position of opposition parties was really strong and thats a complete difference with whats going on right now. I have one question, that came in via text from duncan wood, whos on the web cast watching, so ill throw it into the mix here, why not. Mentioned that weve brought up a little bit about the dispute between transcanada and the government and this question is more generally about the weaknesses in the electorate. I read about weaknesses in the electric grid, how much of a factor is that for the administration going forward. Lets continue down the line. Thank you very much. You say that i argue well, mostly he argues but i also agree that hes focussing very much and shifting attention and resources towards the poorest and most excluded socially excluded segments of the population. You say if that is so why does he end prospera, its a probably thats probably one of the most evaluated programs in the world. I think all the evaluations show that it was able to, at best just for those who do not know, what is prospera. The first conditional Cash Transfer programs for alleviating prove alleviating popoverty. It became the blueprint for all such programs in the world. It became effective in terms of keeping poverty at 50 . Its difficult to have a counterfactual, if you did not have progress most probably you would have had more poverty, but how much more, i dont know. What is true it failed in as far as as its stated objective, which was to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty and that it did not achieve. Perhaps it was too much of a high order. That is something you cannot leave to a single program. Its not important how great a program it was, as i was as we all know, one of the things that happened, even after it was extended to cover for upper secondary education so it ends around say 18 years of age, the huge problem is you were able to get a better perhaps medical attention to keep them in school, but the end of school, of what used to be compulsory schooling, upper secondary, high school, you get out and theres no jobs. Its like the Mount Everest and you have no equipment. Its like, really very difficult to break. So yes, you could say it did its job, kind of. What, you know, it could do. But it wasnt successful in its main objective. And at most i think one could say that it managed to keep poverty at very high levels. So there was also room for rethinking. And one of the things that certainly one cant say is that the implementation of this destruction and substitution essentially with scholarships has been less than well done around what ive heard is around 25 at present, 25 of people and families covered by prospera in the transition have suffered. The idea is that they will not continue to suffer. That they will be minded but it has taken a few months to do so. As to why, if he wants to focus on the poor people and the socially excluded, he has a Business Council, i would say more generally he really hasnt touched the real economic elites very much. I would argue because of the huge structural power of mexican business, which are highly transnational. At this point its very different from the kind of businesses we had in the 1980s that were very inward looking, most of their assets were in mexico. Today about 20 of gdp and 20 of employment are highly internationalized firms and very liquid financially, so its difficult really to imagine you can have growth if you were to declare war upon them, and you would lose like in two days. And then you also need to have at least some of them in your side. And we dont have time, but i think he was its interesting politically what he did, because he, in fact the main entrepreneurs that he put into his Business Council are the ones that have traditionally been scorned. They are also alienated young men of promise that were scored by the real kind of elite. Thank you. Maria. I hope you can answer the question as to whether or not the flow of cash from Drug Trafficking organizations means there will also be corruption in mexico regardless of whats done domestically. I couldnt give you an explanation for that, im sorry. Corruption is not only within organized crime or the dealings between local authorities and organized crime, but it is, as i was saying, a systemic feature of the mexican political system and of the dealings between the businessmen and the government. So im sorry im not prepared to do that. Do i have a couple of minutes to say yes. Theres one thing i want to tell you because yesterday we were talking about this had, we had this very heated, though friendly, discussion. And we were talking about the middle class and we didnt talk about it today. I did mention it briefly. Just briefly. We agreed yesterday the middle class has been the sector that has most suffered in mexico and theyre not very happy for that. And the poor are still not receiving or at least not fully receiving the benefits. So its a very difficult moment. The other thing i wanted to say is that it was mentioned that we should change our view, yeah, and try to look at Lopez Obrador not from a traditional perspective but a new one. And i agree with you, with that. And you were mentioning also that he doesnt care about the law, yes, and it is yeah, its a moral thing, not a law thing. But if he doesnt care about laws, why is he the president that has sent, together with his party, more billions or initiative in his first yeah. First half year in were going to need another seminar. Yes. Round 2. Finally, because nobody addressed the question directly to me. Theres no way of assessing social programs yet. We know about progressa we dont know what will happen with this giving away money to, apparently, 3 million guys or lads that do not its onthejob training its not its onthejob training. Its supposed to be onthejob training. But what i want to claim, it is going to be very difficult to assess it because we dont have information. Yes . And i can prove this. Mention something to you. The web page its called thats the the signature social program. Thats one of the pet programs of this guy. They give 3,600 per month to each youth pesos. Pesos. Thats how many . Divide by 20. Around 3 Million People, yes, by the end 2. 3. 2. 3 Million People. Okay. I take a screen shot every day of it, of the census of people, and it changes constantly, it goes forward and backward and forward and backward. We have had a we had retrospective regression. Weve lost. Regression, yeah. Weve had a regression in terms of open data, as i was saying. And there are, for example, the last time i checked, 67,000 firms that were listed in the in the census, yes, that received these kids or these guys or these students, or these youth. Young people. These young people. That neither work nor study between 18 and 19 years of age. Exactly. So i checked all these private firms that are listed there. And i called ten of them random, yes, six of them didnt exist. Didnt exist. Okay. The other four the other four, yes, existed but said they didnt know what i was talking about. Okay. So its going to be very difficult to check whether one, its functioning, and, two, how many people are actually being paid and how many private firms are there. There are firms like for example, little store in the street, yes, and they put this guy as venders, yes, and there are other firms, big firms that are receiving 1,000 youth. So its going to be if prospera was difficult to evaluate, this is much more difficult. Finally i agree with jorge there are many differences. But most people are worried about congress. But then theres Lopez Obrador about intermediate elections. I think Lopez Obrador is much, much smarter than most of us. Hes not aiming at congress because by the end of these three years he would have passed most of the laws that he wants. Hes aiming at municipalities, at local governments. In 2021, all municipalities, except those of two states, will be renewed. And thats what hes heading for in electoral terms. Finally, there is no opposition to capitalize. Youre completely right. Completely right. However im very sad, very worried, very concerned to tell you whenever i go to give a conference, the question and it makes me really very sad, the last, the regular question or the constant question, the systematic question is whether i see someone, someone, not institution, no party, someone that could capitalize this discontent or the probable lowering of the popularity. So mexicans basically are heading maybe not for Lopez Obrador but then for for me theyre both the same. I cannot say the word. But they are the same theyre both populists. Yeah. But people are looking for someone, for a savior. It is very sad. Thats a sad spot so maybe antonio can try to lift us back up. Go ahead. I dont know if i can. Let me see if i can brighten up. I can maybe do it a little bit. You asked, chris, if its possible for Lopez Obrador to retain support given all these challenges. I do think it is possible for a number of reasons. Number one, i can speak were all fed up with corruption. Were fed up with skewed income distribution. Were fed up that the billionaires become wealthier. Depending on where youre born, thats your destiny. We did manage to change the life of a few young men and women, but thats a drop in the bucket. Now there are budget cuts dont get me going, thats another issue. Among many others. Among many other institutions. So i mean, the diagnosis is correct, i would say its unanimous, and the Main Business are going to say that represents the broader aray of businesses trying to play ball with the government. It said we will invest vast amounts of money to help the south and southeast growth, we agree the poverty rates and corruption are unacceptable. So its trying to engage with the government under new leadership. So especially domestic mexican businesses and the government working together can be done. Especially having foreign businesses work with domestic businesses, i dont know what to call it but maybe a new import substitution, i think its possible to do that, to have a more activist state as long as the rules are clear. And this leads me to the last question that duncan asked. Are there challenges regarding the distribution of gas, i would say yes, there are unnecessary challenges. Because you the u. S. , as you know, is a large exporter of natural gas at low to negative prices. They dont know what to do with the gas. Mexico badly needs gas, not only for the south and southeast its thinking about boosting development to the north, thats related to the migration crisis so for economic, political and social reasons it makes sense to use u. S. Gas in mexico. And it can be easily resolved if these current negotiations come to a successful conclusion. So i think the incentives are there to come to a successful conclusion. It makes sense for everyone. So ill end with that more optimistic thank you so much. Thank you all, please join me in thanking our panelists. Well obviously have to do this again in six months or another year when we have more to analyze. But this is a fun panel. Thank you. A new report on authoritarian governments and National Security threats is being released this afternoon. Well have live coverage from the American Enterprise institute at 3 eastern here on c span 3, online or listen live on the v cspan radio app. Congress is back on the hill. While Congress Returns tuesday to work on defense programs for next year, the senate is back today and will work on several judicial and executive nominations, including assistant education and labor secretaries. Watch live gaveltogavel of the house on cspan and coverage of the senate on cspan 2. There has been a discussion about appearance before congress, any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear before two committees of congress on wednesday, july 17th, at 9 00 a. M. Eastern he gives testimony to the House Judiciary Committee and later in the day hell take questions from the house intelligence committee, both open sessions. Mr. Muellers report into russian interference in the 2016 election will air live on cspan 3, on line or listen with the free cspan radio app. The Senate Commerce committee is looking into how Technology Companies use algorithms and Machine Learning to influence the public. Testifying before the committee scholars and professionals who talked about google, youtube, and facebook use of that technology. Good morning. I want to thank everyone for being here today to