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Left-wing Mexican President<\/span> Claudia Sheinbaum has a proposal to shield her country from Donald Trump\u2019s growing influence over Latin American politics: changing the constitution to bar dual nationals from running for president or governor of any Mexican state.<\/p>\n \u201cA Mexican president is Mexican and does not represent another country,\u201d Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on August 25. If adopted, her proposal would make Mexico\u2019s presidency qualifications in some respects more restrictive than those of the United States, where a president must be born in the country but there is no explicit ban on dual citizenship.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum\u2019s proposal marks the latest in a suite of changes that her critics deem authoritarian. In May, for example, Sheinbaum gave the National Electoral Institute, Mexico\u2019s highest electoral authority, the power to annul presidential elections deemed to have been influenced by foreign actors.<\/p>\n But Sheinbaum argues the reforms are necessary to stave off the growing influence of the far right in Latin America<\/a>, where now two heads of state \u2014 Colombia\u2019s Abelardo de la Espriella and Ecuador\u2019s Daniel Noboa \u2014 are also U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n De la Espriella, the far-right Colombian president who received strong support from Trump during his campaign and took office in June, is a U.S. and Italian citizen and a registered member of the Republican Party. Noboa, who assumed office as Ecuador\u2019s president in 2023 at the age of 35, was born in Miami, Florida, and is the son of one of Ecuador\u2019s richest men. (His father, \u00c1lvaro Noboa, also ran unsuccessfully for president five times.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that Latin America has an ascendant right wing under U.S. influence, said Pamela K. Starr, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. Morena, the party that Sheinbaum leads, genuinely seems to believe there\u2019s an international far-right movement that has taken over most of Latin America and that efforts to weaken Mexico\u2019s left-wing political leadership come from Washington. How Mexican observers view Sheinbaum\u2019s protectionism, meanwhile, is something of a political Rorschach test.<\/p>\n \u201cThose who trust her trust that her efforts are legitimate, that she\u2019s not trying to establish authoritarianism,\u201d Starr told The Intercept. \u201cThose who oppose her have the exact opposite read: that this is simply an extension of the Fourth Transformation\u2019s effort to recreate an authoritarian government in Mexico. The truth obviously is somewhere in between.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Fourth Transformation is the political project launched by former Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, the founder of the Morena party who swept to the presidency in 2018 promising to break with Mexico\u2019s political establishment, reduce inequality<\/a>, and root out corruption<\/a>. L\u00f3pez Obrador cast his movement as a historic transformation of the country, and his successor, Sheinbaum, has pledged to protect it.<\/p>\n Her strategy raises an uncomfortable question inside Mexico: whether measures designed to shield the country from foreign political influence could themselves be used to consolidate Morena\u2019s power.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it is an absurd idea,\u201d said Dami\u00e1n Zepeda, the former president of Mexico\u2019s conservative party PAN, of Sheinbaum\u2019s proposed dual-citizenship ban. \u201cBut we cannot lose sight of the context of the authoritarian government we are living under.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is being done is protecting Mexico from leaders who would sell out their own country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n For Cynthia L\u00f3pez Castro, a Morena senator, the initiative seems fundamental. The logic behind it is that someone who holds dual nationality has a legal bond with another state, L\u00f3pez Castro said, while whoever holds the presidency can only represent the Mexican people.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is being done is protecting Mexico from leaders who would sell out their own country,\u201d said L\u00f3pez Castro, who told The Intercept that the measure was discussed in parliament this week. \u201cPresident Claudia Sheinbaum argues that dual nationality is incompatible with serving as president or governor because these positions require exclusive representation.\u201d<\/p>\n Sheinbaum\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n