Lobbying and Uncertainty in the US*

Manuel Suárez Mier

On the lobbying in the United States by Mexican society to stop the destructive excesses of the mind-boggling leader of its government and the peculiar political situation in which the US finds itself.

As I reviewed last week, more and more Mexicans have concluded that the way to stop the orgy of demolition of the economy and institutions undertaken by the current government of their country is to turn to the US government, which until now has been the only force capable of reversing the erroneous decisions made in Mexico.

The problem is that 87 days before the US elections, which include the president, the entire House of Representatives (435), and a third of the senators, all polls indicate that the Democratic candidate Joe Biden will win and that his party will maintain control of the lower house and perhaps win the majority in the senate.

In addition to the prevailing uncertainty, Donald Trump has been disqualifying the election in advance, arguing that there will be fraud, as many will vote by mail to avoid pandemic crowds on voting day, so his government is tearing down the postal service so that it does not fulfill its mission to the fullest.

If he loses, Trump will denounce the election as unlawful and reject its validity, creating a constitutional conflict that would have to be resolved by the Supreme Court, as happened in the 2000 election when a few votes in Florida gave the victory to George W. Bush. Still, Al Gore accepted his decision, which Trump would never do.

In such a case, there are two scenarios. If Congress is successfully installed on January 3, 2021, as scheduled. However, the presidential election is still in doubt because the vote count in enough districts has not been completed to have a majority, Trump would have to leave the White House on January 20, and the Speaker of the House, most likely Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, would take over.

But suppose the delays in the vote count also affect the integration of Congress and its installation on the indicated date. In that case, it is not clear what would happen, as Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, accurately explains in a recent article that demands that sufficient resources be allocated to guarantee the election.

This will not happen because as Trump continues to lose ground in the polls to his opponent, he will do everything possible to avoid a vote he knows he will lose or delegitimize his results if he does not manage to postpone the date as he has already claimed several times. However, he does not have the power to do so.

In such confusing circumstances, it does not seem convenient to mount a lobbying campaign by the Mexican private sector or groups of organized individuals to try to influence the US authorities to help them stop the destructive demolition derby undertaken by the US government.

It seems to me that the most sensible thing to do is to wait for the outcome of the election to make the appropriate decisions before the new political scenario that will take place in 2021 in the US in any case, since the strategy will have to be designed according to who wins.

*On August 7, 2020, this column was published in Spanish by Excélsior. Today, this column seems newly relevant.