The Future of US-Mexico Relations Under Trump 2.0

This panel will explore the evolving dynamics of U.S.-Mexico relations under President Trump’s second term. Panelists specializing in government, policy, economics, journalism, and more will provide perspectives on the U.S. and Mexico's shifting political landscape.

Speakers

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, Director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego

Santiago Levy, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings

Viridiana Rios, Journalist and Author

Moderated by Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

About the Speakers

Rafael Fernandez de Castro is an expert on U.S.-Mexican Relations, renowned scholar with a deep understanding of bilateral relations between Mexico and the United States. He is an Academic Leader and was the founding chair of the Department of International Studies at ITAM, Mexico City, and current director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego. A Prolific Author and Researcher: Authored several influential books and numerous academic articles on U.S.-Latin American relations and Mexican foreign policy. Policy Advisor and Media Contributor: Served as a foreign policy advisor to President Felipe Calderón and regularly contributes to El Financiero and Televisa. Innovative Researcher on Security: Leads groundbreaking research projects focused on community-based security provision in violence-affected Mexican cities.

Santiago Levy has a PhD in Economics from Boston University (with honors) and post-doctoral studies at Cambridge University. He is currently a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington DC; Senior Fellow, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki, Finland; Board Member, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, Oslo, Norway; Member, The Trilateral Commission, Canada-Mexico-United States Chapter; Member, Academic Advisory Board, Institute for New Structural Economics, Peking University, Beijing, China; Member, Scientific Advisory Council, Real Instituto Elcano, Madrid, Spain; Member, Economic Advisory Panel to the President of the World Bank, Washington, DC. Before that, he was Vice-president at the Inter-American Development Bank, General Director of Mexico’s Social Security Institute, deputy minister at Mexico’s Ministry of Finance (where he led the work on Progresa-Oportunidades, the first Conditional cash Transfer program), and First President of Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission.

In academia, he was president of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association, Associate Professor of Economics (tenured) and director of the Institute for Economic Development at Boston University; and Professor of Economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

He has published on social policy, informality, productivity and growth, education, tax policy, trade and competition policy, and policies for poverty alleviation. He has received First Place, National Research Prize in Economics (Banco Nacional de México); First Place, Latin American Economics Prize (El Trimestre Económico); and Distinguished Alumni Award, Boston University. His current work focuses on the challenges of socially inclusive growth in Latin America.

Viri Ríos is a Mexican journalist and academic. She is a columnist at the European newspaper El País, and the Mexican newspaper Milenio. Her most recent book, "It is not normal (No Es Normal). The rigged game that fuels Mexican inequality and how to change it", explores how to create a fair, inclusive, and prosperous Mexico by changing fiscal, labor and competition regulations. She holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

About the Moderator

Steven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government, Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is also a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation. His research focuses on democracy and authoritarianism, political parties, weak and informal institutions, and most recently, the crisis of democracy in the United States. He and Daniel Ziblatt are authors of How Democracies Die, which was a New York Times best-seller and was published in 30 languages, and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. Levitsky has written or edited 11 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently writing a book on the sources of global democratic resilience in the 21st Century.

This event is presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.