Tim Padgett: Mexico Is a Place Where History Can't Help Repeating Itself Tim Padgett - Businessweek
go to original January 21, 2015

Parents of missing students lead a march through Mexico City. (Brett Gundlock)

When Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto visited President Obama on Jan. 6, hundreds of Mexican Americans demonstrated outside the White House. Hundreds more picketed at Mexican consulates across the U.S. It was an unusual display of solidarity with Mexicans south of the border, who have taken to the streets almost daily since September - when 43 college students were massacred by narco-gangsters - to denounce corruption and violence in their country.

Peña Nieto’s approval rating, which hovered above 60 percent two years ago, has plummeted into the 30s as marchers call for his resignation. That’s a dramatic fall considering how ardently U.S. and international boosters lionized him when he took office in December 2012. Then, it seemed like every financial gazette on the planet was declaring Peña Nieto’s Mexico “the Aztec Tiger.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said it was poised to become a “more dominant economic power in the 21st century” than China.

All that turned out to be familiar hyperbole. Mexico, after all, is a place where history can’t help repeating itself. Peña Nieto’s approval numbers are the lowest for a Mexican president since 1995, when the peso was suffering one of the worst crashes in its history. And that’s fitting, because while another peso collapse may not be imminent, there’s a lot about Mexico in 2015 that feels eerily similar to Mexico in 1995.

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