06-05-19 Latin American Weekly Report

As the domestic political position of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel
López Obrador goes from strength to strength he faces a major diplomatic
challenge north of the border which will only intensify as his US peer
Donald Trump gears up for a re-election bid. López Obrador scrambled to
dispatch a negotiating team led by his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, to
Washington on 31 May after Trump suddenly announced the imposition of
tariffs on all Mexican imports from 10 June on the grounds that the
country’s efforts to curtail illegal immigration to the US had been insufficient.
But López Obrador received an electoral palliative on 2 June when
his left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) seized control
of two state governorships from the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional
(PAN) with emphatic victories.