The Economist - USA (2021-02-20)

28 The Americas The Economist February 20th 2021

A

ban on single-use plastics sounded

like a good idea. But it has ended up

enraging many women in Mexico’s cap-

ital, a city of 9.2m. Last week they discov-

ered that they could no longer buy tam-

pons with plastic applicators.

Mexico City’s government, which is

led by a woman, Claudia Sheinbaum, has

been implementing the law since the

start of 2021. Its aim is to reduce the city’s

solid waste, thought to be second only to

the amount produced by the New York

metropolitan area, measured by weight.

Plastic bags, cups and straws have al-

ready been banned. It took until now for

tampons with plastic applicators, the

only kind that were easily available, to

run out of stock in most shops.

Regina Soltero, a 23-year-old doctor

who works 24-hour shifts treating co-

vid-19 patients in a public hospital, says

she depends on them. “They are comfort-

able and less likely to leak on my white

uniform,” she says. Marina Robles, the

city’s environment minister, added to

women’s anger by declaring that tam-

pons are not essential items. They are

used mainly by prosperous women.

Women should instead try reusable

menstrual cups, which are made of

rubber, said a city legislator.

Most Mexican women use pads,

which are cheaper. Some young women

think tampons cause them to lose their

virginity, says Sandra Peniche, a doctor

who runs a sexual-health organisation in

Mérida in Mexico’s south-east. Others

simply don’t know much about them. Dr

Peniche has seen women who have worn

a tampon for three days or had sex with-

out removing it.

The ban is unlikely to help the envi-

ronment much. Pads, which many wom-

en will now have to use—“I hate them,”

says Dr Soltero—are at least as polluting.

The ban will probably be quickly circum-

vented. Tampons are on sale in towns

just outside the city. Pharmacies inside it

are reportedly selling them under the

counter. As Sergio Sarmiento, a journal-

ist, pointed out, the ban doesn’t affect

condoms, some of which are made of

polyurethane, “despite them being plas-

tic and used only once (I hope)”.

Dr Peniche reckons the tampon ban is

yet another example of women’s needs

being ignored—or worse. Last year, when

thousands took to the streets to protest

against a rise in murders of women,

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador,

an ally of Ms Sheinbaum, called them

conservative opponents in disguise.

Women in Mexico

Tampon tempest

MEXICO CITY

The side-effect of a law against single-use plastics

Canada Agreement (usmca), North Ameri-

ca’s free-trade pact. It would put at risk

some 150 renewable-energy projects that

are expected to bring more than $40bn-

worth of investment, and make it impossi-

ble for Mexico to reach its commitments to

reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. amlo

cancelled the construction of a $13bn air-

port for Mexico City that was already half-

built. These policies have undermined the

confidence of investors.

If all this were a prelude to enacting

bold ideas for improving Mexicans’ well-

being, the cost might be tolerable. But

amlo’s solutions are bullets discharged

from an antique gun that is badly aimed

and packed with too little fiscal firepower.

His dedication to fiscal discipline, lauda-

ble in a populist of the left, became coun-

terproductive in the pandemic. In a bizarre

role reversal, the imfis urging Mexico to

spend much more than the 0.7% of gdpit

has done to fight the pandemic’s economic

effects. Brazil, by contrast, has spent 8% of

gdp, and Argentina 3.8%. amloresists be-

cause he fears that Mexico could become

beholden to foreign creditors as it did dur-

ing a financial crisis in 1982.

His tightfistedness, some economists

fear, will lead to “scarring”—a permanent

drop in output caused by a loss of jobs and

businesses during the pandemic. Bound

by fiscal constraints, the patron of the poor

has done little to protect them. He has

shuffled money around, slashing spending

on the government apparatus and boosting

it on pet social programmes. He has dou-

bled old-age pensions and aims to pay

2.3m young adults to study or take up ap-

prenticeships. Overall, though, social

spending has risen little. Social pro-

grammes are being “done on the cheap”,

says Javier Tello, a television commenta-

tor. A sharp rise in the minimum wage has

helped some workers with formal jobs.

Businesses pay for that.

Where amlohas splashed out is on old-

economy projects that will deliver little re-

turn. He has poured money into Pemex,

the world’s most indebted oil company,

and plans to spend $8bn to build the Dos

Bocas refinery in his home state of Tabas-

co. Airlines think the mountainous terrain

around the military airport that is to be-

come the alternative civilian hub for Mexi-

co City will restrict flights.

The fourth transformation has not less-

ened the greatest dangers to Mexicans’

safety, one new and one old. The govern-

ment’s handling of the pandemic has been

disastrous. Its miserly social spending has

contributed to a widespread feeling that

unsafe work is the only alternative to going

hungry. amlohas been spotted just once

wearing a face mask (most Mexicans do

wear one). Mexico tests few people for co-

vid-19 by international standards. Hospi-

tals are full and oxygen tanks are in short

supply. Vaccination got off to a very slow

start. People who hoped that amlowould

show a greater sense of urgency after he

contracted covid-19 were disappointed. On

February 8th he reappeared after a two-

week convalescence. He caught the bug, he

said, because like many Mexicans he can-

not stop working.

The voters who gave amlohis landslide

election win in 2018 wanted, perhaps more

than anything else, a big reduction in the

country’s high number of murders. They

are still waiting. amlo proclaimed last

year’s 0.4% dip a “significant success”, but

it comes after a rise the year before. Mur-

ders of women, which led to mass protests

last year, stayed at record levels in 2020.

amlorejected previous governments’

tactic of killing or capturing crime king-

pins, because this led to a splintering of

gangs and thus to more violence. But his

signature policies for combating crime

have not so far worked. His notion that re-

ducing poverty will ultimately lower crime

“might stop a three-year-old becoming El

Chapo”, a notorious drug lord, says Mr Tel-

lo. “But it doesn’t have an answer for the

current El Chapos.” Formerly suspicious of

the armed forces, amloissued a decree giv-

ing them primary responsibility for fight-

ing crime. A new 100,000-strong National

Guard is composed mainly of soldiers rath-

er than people trained in policing.

amlohas fought the gentler crime of

corruption by setting an example of probi-

ty and imposing stiffer penalties on bribe-

taking bureaucrats. He has done less to

strengthen institutions that will carry the

AMLO’s numbers

Mexico

Sources: National statistics; IMF

*Change in methodology in 2014 †Estimate

30

20

10

0

2007 2015

Homicides per

100,000 people*

AMLO

AMLO

Calderón

Peña

Nieto Calderón

Peña

Nieto

5

0

-5

-10

2007 20†15

GDP, % change

on a year earlier