Eagle Hill Discussion Forum

Can Mexico's new president address mounting US concerns about drugs and refugees—concerns that could determine the US presidential race?

with Alan Riding

Thursday, October 10, 2024,

at 5 PM, US Eastern Time (ET)

For the best part of 70 years, the US could ignore Mexico in the knowledge that its one-party system would insure stability. Then, in 2000, this “perfect dictatorship” ended in an electoral defeat, bringing instability in the form of intense drug-related violence and tidal waves of immigrants from across the world trying to reach the US through Mexico. Six years ago, a leftist populist, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, became president under the banner of a new nationalist party, known as Morena, which he sought to model on the old PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party. On October 1, his hand-picked successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, took office, pledging to continue her mentor’s controversial policies. Looking ahead, Washington can probably ignore the erosion of democracy in Mexico, but whoever wins the White House on November 5 will have to address the double border crisis of drugs and refugees. How President Sheinbaum responds to US pressure will determine the state of bilateral relations for the next six years. And how these and other issues such as bilateral trade are handled will unavoidably influence the outcome of next month’s and future US presidential elections.

Alan Riding is a Brazilian-born British journalist and writer whose career took him first to New York with Reuters, then to Mexico for The Financial Times and The Economist. In 1978, he joined The New York Times and, from Mexico, he also covered the Nicaraguan Revolution and the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. In 1984, he moved to Brazil, his base for covering the drug and guerrilla wars in Colombia and Peru, before returning to Europe in 1989. After five years as The New York Times's bureau chief in Paris, he became the newspaper's European Cultural Correspondent until he left the paper in 2007. Among his books are Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans; Essential Shakespeare Handbook and Opera, of which he is co-author; and And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. He is now writing principally for the theatre.

Scheduling Details

This online forum begins Thursday, October 10, 2024, at 5 PM ET. The link for the forum opens at 4:30 PM ET.

To register for this discussion forum email Joerg-Henner Lotze at joerg@eaglehill.us by 10:00 AM ET of the program date.

Online Discussion Forum participants have the opportunity to enjoy becoming more informed about such topics as international affairs, diplomacy, climate change, the sciences, the arts and humanities, economics, philosophy, etc. There is much to be learned from amiable frank discussions.

Online Discussion Forums generally run for about 1.5–2 hours and begin with a 15– to 30-minute introduction by a guest presenter, after which aspects of the topics that were presented are open for discussion. Participants need to have a free zoom.us account. The 30 minutes prior to the beginning of each Forum are for open discussion and technology checking.

General forum information, guidelines, and calendar.

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