Warren's Rise Alarms Mexican Business Circles

Last week in Houston, a select group of businessmen from Monterrey, Mexico met with political consultant Alan Stoga, from Henry Kissinger's consulting firm. Stoga became the talk of the town three years ago when he was the keynote speaker in a couple of events at the Vector brokerage firm, owned by Alfonso Romo, a close adviser of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Stoga made a name for himself because a month before the U.S. 2016 presidential election, he prognosticated in a private meeting that Donald Trump could be elected, even though all polls gave Hillary Clinton the election. At that time he made such a complete explanation of the U.S. electoral college system and the states Trump required to win that he became a recurring source in Monterrey's power circle.

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The consultant now identifies Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren as the main risk to Mexico in the election. Unlike four years ago, the risk would no longer be Trump, which has a strong synchronism with the AMLO administration, but the arrival of the senator representing the hard wing of the Democratic Party, which the White House disqualifies as "socialist".

The consultant subscribes to the idea that Joe Biden's candidacy has been badly wounded by the Ukrainian scandal and that it is almost a fact that Trump will be campaigning harassed by the impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives. On that climate appears Senator Warren as a viable option for the Democratic nomination.

The candidate fervently believes in raising the wealth tax, has many doubts about the new USMCA trade agreement (in part because she has strong support from the unions), and she has a project for a special tax for foreigners who buy property in the United States in the works. Issues that are difficult to digest for the Mexican business elites.

Stoga understands that Warren's chances will improve if at the end of this year the first symptoms of a slowdown in the U.S. economy appear, given that many middle-class voters do not stomach Trump too much, but voted for him for economic reasons.

On the possibilities of the other aspirant of the "socialist wing," Senator Bernie Sander, the specialist understands that he has fewer chances than Warren because he does not have a financing structure as strong as that of his colleague.