AMLO Wins in Mexico | Saudi Oil Output | Poland's Top Judges

Council on Foreign Relations Newsletter If you are unable to see the message below, click here to view. July 2, 2018 Daily News Brief   TOP OF THE AGENDA Leftist AMLO Sweeps Mexico’s Presidential Election Former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, won Mexico’s presidential election yesterday (Guardian) with 53 percent of votes, according to an initial tally, some thirty percentage points over his nearest contender. Lopez Obrador won on campaign pledges to eradicate corruption and give preference to those he called Mexico’s poorest and forgotten (Bloomberg). At the same time, he appears to have avoided prompting market concerns, with vows to not raise taxes, respect the autonomy of the central bank, and remain open to oil and gas deals cut under his predecessor if they had not been tainted by corruption. The election marked a low point (WSJ) for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for most of the last century, taking just 16 percent of votes. ANALYSIS “AMLO is definitely a populist, but he is not a left-wing radical. His catchy political narrative is based on creating opposition between honest citizens and dishonest politicians (which he calls the ‘power mafia’),” Nicola Morfini and Oscar Sandoval-Saenz write for Al Jazeera. “[AMLO] is unlikely to upend NAFTA—the bigger threat to the quarter-century-old trade agreement comes from the United States. Instead, supporters and detractors alike expect him to shift Mexico’s domestic economic paradigm, expanding the role of government through a broader social safety net and active industrial policies,” writes CFR’s Shannon K. O’Neil in Foreign Affairs. “The election also comes at a time when Mexico’s stable relationship with the United States has devolved, leaving many tired of the country being the punching bag of its northern neighbor,” Whitney Eulich writes for the Christian Science Monitor. PACIFIC RIM South Korea, U.S. Forge Ahead With North Korea Diplomacy South Korea’s unification minister will lead a delegation (Korea Times) to the North tomorrow ahead of a two-day inter-Korean basketball competition. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected in Pyongyang (Nikkei) later this week to discuss North Korean denuclearization. CFR’s Patricia M. Kim discussed the recent summit between the U.S. and North Korean leaders. AUSTRALIA: Several major retail chains and two Australian states began bans on single-use plastic bags (NPR) yesterday, following similar bans by two other states. In Foreign Affairs, Joshua Busby lays out why climate change is the globe’s most pressing issue. SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA Bombing in Eastern Afghanistan Targets Sikhs Nineteen people, including at least ten Sikhs, were killed in an attack yesterday in the eastern city of Jalalabad that targeted a caravan (Tolo) on its way to meet President Ashraf Ghani, who was there to inaugurate a new hospital. No group has claimed the attack (Al Jazeera). BANGLADESH: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim are visiting Bangladeshi camps (Dhaka Tribune) for Rohingya refugees today. Guterres said Rohingya who fled neighboring Myanmar seek “justice and a safe return home.” MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA Saudi Arabia Says It Has Capacity to Boost Oil Output King Salman told U.S. President Donald J. Trump that Saudi Arabia could increase its oil output (HuffPo) by two million barrels per day if needed to ensure market stability, the White House said on Saturday, though Saudi Arabia has not confirmed plans to do so. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh called on Riyadh (DW) to heed OPEC production limits. CFR’s Amy Myers Jaffe discusses the geopolitics of U.S. oil sanctions on Iran. IRAN: Eleven people, mostly police officers, were injured during protests (AP) over water scarcity in the southern city of Khorramshahr, according to Interior Ministry officials. SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AU Leaders to Discuss Extremism, Corruption More than forty heads of state are in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott (DW) for an African Union summit early this week. The summit comes on the heels of several days of attacks on civilians and security forces in neighboring Mali. ERITREA: The UN envoy for human rights in Eritrea, in her final report to the Human Rights Council, called on the country to end practices (VOA) including indefinite military and national service, arbitrary arrests, and incommunicado detentions. EUROPE German Interior Minister Offers to Step Down Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union’s Bavarian sister party, offered to resign (DW) in the “interest of this country and the capacity of this government, which we want to maintain.” Seehofer’s hard-line positions on asylum seekers recently sparked a crisis in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. POLAND: A law that will force some of the country’s top judges to retire early (FT) takes effect tomorrow. The legislation has been at the center of a two-year dispute between Warsaw and Brussels over judicial independence. AMERICAS Canada Hits U.S. With Retaliatory Tariffs Ottawa imposed tariffs yesterday (Globe and Mail) on $16.6 billion worth of U.S. products, including ketchup and beer kegs, in retaliation for recently imposed U.S. duties on steel and aluminum. UNITED STATES Border Patrol Arrests Dropped in June U.S. authorities arrested 34,057 people (AP) last month for crossing the southern border without authorization, the lowest number since February but more than double that of June last year. In this CFR conference call, experts looked at what’s driving Central American migration to the United States. The U.S. ambassador to Estonia, James D. Melville, Jr., resigned in protest of what he said were nonfactual statements by President Trump (WaPo) about the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).         Council on Foreign Relations — 58 East 68th Street — New York, NY 10065 CFR does not share email addresses with third parties. Forward This Email | Subscribe to CFR Newsletters | Unsubscribe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

From: dailybrief@e.cfr.org

Date: July 02, 2018 at 10:05PM