President Claudia Sheinbaum has had to face an uncomfortable truth: much of the rhetoric that has sustained Mexico’s Cuarta Transformación movement now runs up against the country’s real-world constraints. In recent months, a string of cases has forced her government to walk back — or outright reverse — positions that were hallmarks of the López Obrador era: opposition to fracking, oil exports to Cuba, claims of moral superiority in the fight against corruption, and the image of a government defined by honesty.
The limitations facing the Sheinbaum administration stem from three concrete sources: weak economic performance, the shortcomings of the government apparatus itself, and sustained pressure from the United States.
1. Ideology constrains growth. Mexico’s economy got off to a disappointing start this year, and the situation in the Middle East has compounded the problem — forcing the government to sacrifice revenue to maintain fuel subsidies and to reconsider options it had previously ruled out, such as using unconventional methods to exploit natural gas deposits and reduce Mexico’s longstanding dependence on gas imports from Texas. The fact that the Cuarta Transformación never pursued alternatives to address this structural vulnerability can only be explained by the López Obrador administration’s ideological rigidity around fracking.
2. A government that stumbles over the truth. For a political movement that made honesty its defining banner, several recent episodes have proven particularly damaging. An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico exposed a defensive and opaque government response: what was initially characterized as “natural seepage” turned out to be a Pemex-caused disaster — known to company officials from the start yet concealed from its own Director General and from the President herself. A similar pattern emerged with a UN report on enforced disappearances: the government’s reflexive dismissal of its findings projected the image of an administration more focused on controlling the narrative than on confronting the problem. The same appears true of the government’s staunch defense of the innocence of Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya. In each case, the official response ended up looking uncomfortably similar to those of the PAN and PRI administrations that Morena’s governments promised to leave behind.
3. The limits of sovereignty. Sovereignty has been a constant theme in President Sheinbaum’s public narrative, but its limits are becoming increasingly apparent. When faced with episodes such as the participation of U.S. agencies in an anti-drug operation in the state of Chihuahua, or extradition requests targeting Governor Rocha Moya and nine other Sinaloa officials, the government’s public tone stiffens — while its actual response remains measured. The relationship with the United States demands a pragmatism that sits in tension with the rhetoric. Even in ideologically aligned international settings — such as the recent Summit in Defense of Democracy in Barcelona, which Sheinbaum attended — Mexico’s activism is kept in check to avoid provoking Washington. Sovereignty, more than a genuine policy, increasingly resembles a rhetorical resource aimed at a domestic audience.
