After election of socialist Obrador, will Mexico morph into Venezuela-style failed state?

Beset by corruption, poverty and endemic violence, Mexican voters sent a message of desperation on Sunday by voting overwhelmingly to make socialist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador their next president. This is bad for the U.S., but even worse for Mexico.

President Trump did the neighborly thing in congratulating Obrador on his victory and pledged to work with him. But in fact Obrador’s win bodes ill for future relations.

His talking points for the policies he’ll pursue once in office sound much more like Venezuela’s late socialist dictator Hugo Chavez than, say, Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher.

For starters, Obrador vows to renationalize the oil industry, halt all cooperation with U.S. immigration laws, give amnesty to the drug cartels, boost farm subsidies and remove “multinational” investment in agriculture, encourage mass migration by Mexicans to the U.S., while using remittances from workers in the U.S. to fuel Mexican growth.