Donald Trump's presidency is proving to be a disaster for the ruling, neoliberal political party in Mexico - PRI.

By the time the last brick is laid atop President Donald Trump’s Mexican wall, it’s a fair bet that someone more antagonistic toward the U.S. will hold power on its southern side.
Especially if that someone is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Which, thanks to Trump, looks increasingly likely.

Lopez Obrador is a left-wing Social Democrat that barely lost a hotly contested 2006 presidential election.
You could see this one coming all the way back in September.

"If Trump were to win, Lopez Obrador would have a field day"
- Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer

Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party lost six of the nine governorships it held going into that election cycle, a defeat attributed to corruption scandals, the country's weak economy, and rising violence, all of which have dogged the party.

Nieto wasn't popular before Trump won, but since Trump started openly humiliating him, it's gone from bad to worse.

All of this has inflamed Mexican nationalism and helped the left-wing Obrador.

Popular feeling is running so strong that Mexican politicians have little choice but to fall in line. Online campaigns are calling on Mexicans to vacation at home (“Adios Disneylandia... Hola Mexico”). Local governments and activists demand boycotts of U.S. products. Many Mexicans have draped the national flag across their social media pages.
It just sounds less convincing coming from leaders who’ve made a career out of close U.S. ties. Pena Nieto’s approval rating is 12 percent...

“The president is a boot-licker,” Solis said. “Lopez Obrador has the guts to stand up to Trump and tell it like it is.”

At the rally, Lopez Obrador -- a 63-year-old with a shock of white hair who’s recently taken to sporting sideburns -- did what he usually does. He blamed “neoliberalism” for rampant inequality and violence, and vowed to protect local farmers from northern competition. “Everything depends on strengthening Mexico,” he said, “so we can confront aggression from abroad with strength.”

Amusingly, the conservatives fear this outcome that they've created.

If Amlo can repeat Lula’s feat, it will spell trouble for Washington, according to Jose Cardenas, a former senior official at the State Department. The Brazilian toned down his populism once he took office. Lopez Obrador, according to Cardenas, bears a closer resemblance to another Latin leader who didn’t.

Amlo is a “Hugo Chavez wannabe,” Cardenas wrote in National Review. He warned of likely disputes “on everything from border security, counterterrorism, and drug-war cooperation to deportations and restricting Central American migration.”
Every item on that list is a hot-button issue for Trump. But, as seen from Mexico, they’re primarily northern problems.

Ironically, Obrador's win could grant Trump his wish - gutting NAFTA.

Lopez Obrador would add the country’s U.S.-friendly energy and agriculture policies to the catalog of woes. He says Mexico will consume its own gasoline and food on his watch, instead of importing it.

That would mean changes to Nafta, probably not the ones Trump has in mind -- assuming the trade pact survives at all. Its impact on Mexico is hotly debated in any case, and both sides can cite data that backs up their arguments.

Nafta has made no inroads into Mexico’s poverty rate. It stood at 53 percent in 2014, pretty much unchanged from two decades earlier when the trade accord went into effect, according to the World Bank. ....
“Nafta is a straitjacket that has kept 50 percent of our society in poverty” said Senator Manuel Bartlett of the Labor Party. “This is not about being antagonistic to the United States, it’s about being nationalist in defense of Mexico’s interests.”