Sheinbaum’s first year has been a contradictory & muddled experiment
President Sheinbaum speaking at a rally this week in Morelos. Image credit: Presidency of Mexico.
by Andrew Law, founder and editor.
Around this time last year I was just arriving back in London, having traveled to Mexico for President Claudia Sheinbaum’s historic inauguration. While I encountered a handful of people already dismissive of Sheinbaum and contemptuous of her MORENA party, most I met were prepared to give the incoming president the benefit of the doubt. Many were hopeful that once in office she would prove as inspirational as the symbolism of her election promised. She had a great deal of political goodwill and capital to burn. One year on, her personal approval continues at stratospheric levels. But her consistently lower numbers on specific policy areas suggest the Mexican public are well aware of the tensions that mark her conflicted and contradictory first year in power.
The conventional wisdom is that on the big ticket items of trade and security Sheinbaum has scored some wins. Her management of the US–Mexico relationship has been cautious but in the eyes of many effective. The thinking goes something like this: with Donald Trump back in the White House, Mexico’s northern border could have become an economic choke point. Instead, Sheinbaum prioritized the survival of the USMCA, resisting confrontation and avoiding the rhetorical skirmishes her predecessor seemed to relish. In doing so, she not only kept US trade threats at bay but also drew Canada closer as a quiet ally. Marcelo Ebrard has played the role of economic diplomat in chief, constantly negotiating with Washington, reinforcing Mexico’s stance as a stable partner in an era of volatile politics.
Yet a sizeable minority of Mexico’s trade with the US remains tariffed despite the USMCA. While exports, under pressure but still stable, keep Mexico afloat, domestic consumption is weak and investment has declined sharply. A recent report from Integralia notes that the labor market has contracted by over 100,000 jobs. Fiscal prudence has been maintained, but it has come at the cost of public investment, which dropped by a staggering 34%. These are self-inflicted wounds, the product of reforms that unsettle investors and pile new burdens on business.
That same conventional wisdom tells us security has also been recalibrated. By bringing Omar García Harfuch into her cabinet, Sheinbaum signaled seriousness. Her team hardly goes a week without trumpeting the familiar statistics: homicides down by nearly a fifth, femicides reduced, drug seizures up. Administration insiders seem to genuinely believe they’ve got on the front foot with the subject. But as I wrote several weeks back, statistics are slippery things. The government leans on selective numbers while sidestepping the rise in disappearances, the surge in cocaine trafficking across the US border, and the weekly flood of videos showing daylight carjackings and other brazen crimes going unanswered. Mexico’s security story remains unresolved at best.
Where Sheinbaum has made a break with Andrés Manuel López Obrador is in professionalism. Gone are the days of improvisational governance. Integralia describes her administration as one of “more and better planning.” She has rolled out the Plan México, a blueprint that promises order: infrastructure projects, investment in energy and logistics, public private partnerships. For the private sector, this predictability is no small relief after years of volatility.
Yet her first year is also defined by democratic regression. The so-called “Plan C” reforms, inherited from AMLO but championed by Sheinbaum, dismantled decades of institutional guardrails. Independent regulators, from the competition authority to the transparency institute, have been gutted. The judiciary’s autonomy has been clipped. The press faces indirect pressures. What Mexico has gained in administrative discipline it is losing in democratic pluralism.
This duality extends to social policy. Sheinbaum has leaned into her historic position as Mexico’s first female president. She elevated the office dedicated to women’s affairs to cabinet level, introduced stipends for older women, revived childcare centers, and launched scholarships in the name of Rita Cetina, a 19th century feminist educator. Yet these initiatives may become hollow shells without sufficient funding. The budget for gender equality is thin and scattered, long on symbolism but short on structural change.
That holds true for the environment, too. Sheinbaum, the much-feted climate scientist, presides over a government cutting the environment ministry’s budget while privileging hydrocarbons over renewables. Lofty rhetoric about climate goals sits uneasily beside policies that lock in fossil fuel dependency and jeopardize Mexico’s natural wildernesses.
Her daily mañaneras, the morning press conferences, embody the same tension. She has held over 200 so far. They are long, repetitive rituals reminiscent of AMLO’s, only more structured and substantially duller. Former presidents still serve as foils: none more so than Felipe Calderón, though Salinas, Zedillo, Fox and Peña Nieto all get embittered nods. And despite the more evidentiary nature of her presentations, Sheinbaum is as prone to hyperbole as AMLO was. Just recall her proclamation that, “There is no more corruption in Mexico.”
Meanwhile, it remains unclear what the president is willing to use her substantial political capital on. Sheinbaum’s anti-nepotism and re-election measures may or may not be good ideas. But they are her own, and while watered down and delayed, that testifies to some noses being put out of joint. She has made laudable and controversial moves to curb Mexico’s addiction to highly processed junk foods. But in areas where reform really matters, she has stalled. That’s most notable in how she has refused to push out any of the several high profile and publicly compromised figures within her political party. Despite her sky-high polling, she does not yet appear to have the confidence of her convictions and remains instead the faithful executor of AMLO’s will.
One year in, the picture is of a president trying to square circles: discipline with populism, professionalism with opacity, reform with regression. Her personal approval remains high, but beneath it are anxious investors, alarmed democrats, and disillusioned citizens (yes – even within her own coalition). On its merits, Sheinbaum’s first year is neither triumph nor disaster; instead, it’s a muddled experiment testing whether Mexico can modernize its governance while backsliding on democracy. Going into her second year of six, and with a still supportive but critical public watching, Sheinbaum may yet find the stability she seeks undermined by the openness she denies.