BORDER ISSUES

Mexico's president shifts tone on coronavirus as border states press for more restrictions

Rafael Carranza
Arizona Republic
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

TUCSON — Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is taking a more serious stance in his approach to the coronavirus pandemic, asking Mexicans to stay home, but only after several weeks of intense criticism as he continued to dismiss recommendations by public health experts to curb the spread of the virus.

"This is a passing crisis, we will move forward," he told reporters on Friday during his televised daily briefing. "It's a bad moment, we will recover, we will be safe and sound, the economy will reactivate, and the trust, the joy, the happiness for our people will return."

The shift in tone for López Obrador mirrors that of President Donald Trump, who at first downplayed the seriousness of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

Like his Mexican counterpart, Trump has also been widely criticized for his response to the pandemic. But unlike Trump, López Obrador doesn't face the pressures of reelection. His six-year term ends in 2024, and he continues to enjoy moderately high approval ratings in Mexico, though they have taken a hit amid the pandemic.

The country has reported more than 1,500 positive cases as of Friday, although Mexico is testing fewer people than other countries with a comparable number of cases. 

This week, top Mexican health officials implemented stricter guidelines to curb the spread of COVID-19 within the country. They called for nonessential businesses around the country to shut down until the end of April, and for the nation's 125 million people to stay home.

"We don't want any more infections," said Hugo López Gatell Ramírez, the Health Ministry's spokesman for the COVID-19 response in Mexico. 

"We've also been very clear in pointing out that we can't stop this entirely, we can't stop all infections, we can't stop the pandemic. But we do have the opportunity to reduce infections," he added.

At first, many of the country's residents were not heeding their warnings. From border cities in northern Mexico like Nogales, Sonora, to the country's crowded capital city, Mexicans largely continued going to work and going about their daily lives, risking the further spread of the virus. 

In many ways, they were following López Obrador's lead.

Up until this week, he continued to hold mass rallies around the country where he interacted with supporters. That included a much criticized visit to Sinaloa state over the weekend, where the president shook hands with the mother of jailed Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

His morning press conferences have been filled with moments that draw widespread criticism. It peaked with a video last Sunday where he urged people to continue going out to restaurants until he told them otherwise. Even pop stars like telenovela queen Thalia called him out and asked people to ignore him and stay at home. 

'Informal' economy's impact 

No other challenge could be more problematic than what to do about the country's vast informal sector. From taco and food stands on street corners, to service jobs, roughly 40 percent of all Mexicans work informally, said Dr. José María Ramos García.

He's a researcher with the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (College of the Northern Border) in Tijuana, Mexico, and a political analyst with a special emphasis on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ramos García said despite government appeals to stay home, the livelihoods of millions of Mexican families depend on their ability to go out and work each day. The decision to stay home could mean that worker's families may have to do without food or other basic necessities.

" 'What is the Mexican government or the state government giving me, if they're stopping me from working? I have the right, the need to work.' So that's a very delicate topic, and that can create some tension later on," he said.

To date, the Mexican government is taking the economic impact seriously. Recent projections have the economy contracting as much as 7% this year, as the pandemic causes a global downturn. 

On Sunday, López Obrador unveiled his economic plan to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, but it also was criticized for not doing enough to help businesses and workers.

The president's plan focuses mainly on strengthening the social welfare programs that his administration put in place to help Mexico's elderly and the poor, a cornerstone of his presidency. 

"The just thing is to give more to those who have less," he summarized on Monday morning. "There cannot be equal treatment amidst so much inequality. We cannot only be thinking about those on top, and turning our backs on those at the bottom."

He talked about developing infrastructure projects around the country to create jobs, such as a controversial plan to build a 950-mile-long, high-speed train in southern Mexico that would run through protected rain forest, angering environmentalists.

Despite the support for some of the programs, business leaders criticized his inaction, especially for the small and midsize businesses that make up the backbone of the Mexican economy.

Ramos García says the Mexican government doesn't have the resources to provide loans to businesses or direct financial aid in the way that Trump is doing in the U.S. López Obrador has been firmly against raising taxes or indebting the country, so his government has had to raid other programs to finance his projects, he said.

"So the challenge is how do you generate productive jobs, and not foster the notion of social welfare," Ramos García. "And that's not a bad thing. The problem is that social welfare alone does not generate jobs or productivity, or even reduce economic equality."

Border concerns 

Another more latent challenge, and one of the biggest sources of criticism for López Obrador's handling of the coronavirus, is the situation and level of exposure along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The numbers alone show the concern: While Mexico has more than 1,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and at least 50 deaths, cases in the U.S. have surpassed a quarter of a million. Deaths north of the border topped 6,600 this week. Arizona alone had confirmed about 1,769 cases as of Friday and 41 deaths related to the coronavirus.

The U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to limit travel along their shared border, resulting in a steep drop in the number of people crossing back and forth. 

But, while the U.S. is enforcing the restrictions on "nonessential" travel into the country, border residents and politicians on the Mexican side say their government is not doing the same thing with U.S. travelers into Mexico. 

Nogales Port of Entry, Dennis DeConcini Crossing, on Nov. 9, 2018.

In the absence of a coordinated response from the federal government, Mexico's border states have taken action on their own. Some states like Sonora deployed their state health departments to their border crossings. Others like Nuevo León are screening passengers at bus terminals, especially those arriving from the U.S.

Governors from the three northeastern states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas — all on the border with Texas — called on López Obrador to consider closing all southbound traffic from the U.S. into Mexico to keep those states from getting overwhelmed with imported cases.

"The greatest degree of transmissions may not be in Nuevo Leon, it may not be in Jalisco state, or in Tamaulipas. We have a neighbor," Nuevo León Gov. Jaime Rodríguez said, referring to the U.S. "We don't have the authority to close the border, (López Obrador) does have it, and he should look into it." 

In Baja California — across the border from California — Gov. Jaime Bonilla hasn't set in place measures at his stretch of the border, which includes some of the busiest land crossings in the world. But, this week he called on the National Guard to help patrol the streets in the state to ensure people stay at home. 

Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich also called on greater restrictions along the border, during a virtual meeting earlier this week that López Obrador held with the country's governors. 

On Tuesday night, the state confirmed its first positive case in Nogales, its largest and most important border city with Arizona. The woman who tested positive had traveled to Arizona two weeks earlier and began showing symptoms shortly after.

Pavlovich signaled that the state government is limited in the types of actions it can take. The ultimate decision rests within the president's authority. 

"We are all asking the same question. If they closed access from here to there, why not from there to here?" she said. "What we have been able to do is to add filters, and tell people that are crossing to go back. But we can't do this forcefully because we are not authorized to do that."

On March 25, a group of protesters closed southbound access at Sonora's main border crossing with Arizona in the twin border cities of Nogales, to call on the government to step up screenings for Mexico-bound travelers.

José Luis Hernández, who led the protest and blockade, credited that action with the stepped-up screenings that Sonora health officials are doing in Nogales to screen travelers from the U.S. 

He told The Arizona Republic that he's in constant contact with the port director for Mexican customs at Nogales, who also oversees Sonora's five other border crossings with Arizona. 

"He was telling me that all of these actions that will be undertaken, and some already in place, will be extended to all of the border crossings in Sonora," Hernández said. "But for us, the demand is that the Mexican federal government take action at all border crossings in the country." 

Politics a factor

While some top officials in Mexico have ruled out closing the border with the U.S. completely, neither López Obrador nor his foreign minister has yet commented on the topic, or on any additional restrictions at the border that the government can pursue.

The latest poll out this week from Mitofsky, one of the most respected pollsters in Mexico, showed that a majority of respondents (52%) held little to no faith in the government's ability to take the necessary steps to address the pandemic. About 54% disapproved specifically of López Obrador's handling of the crisis. 

The president, for his part, has mostly dismissed criticism against him as politically motivated.

"I understand the desperation of our adversaries," he told reporters this week. "It's not coronavirus, or even the economic crisis that worries them. No, what's at stake here is whether true change succeeds or fails.

"Whether we move forward with our Fourth Transformation or go back, retrocede to what we had before, to a regimen of corruption, injustices and privilege. This is the challenge, that's what's being debated," he added.

Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter @RafaelCarranza.

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