Sheibaum takes office on October 5th, and her continued commitment to such white elephant projects at the Train Maya suggests that she will continue the policies of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, her predecessor and mentor. 

 Despite her environmental credentials, Sheinbaum and her party remain committed to an environmental crime of a Stalinist scale. 

 The Train Maya is a project reportedly set to cost Mexico $30 billion and provide a rail link to the Mayan peninsula. Thus far, the project has drawn few users. Its construction has run roughshod over the concerns of Indigenous groups and environmental concerns. Its total construction cost is roughly the same as China's Three Gorges Dam, another Stalinist project that devastated a similar fragile water system. The train threatens some of the 10,000 cenotes or subterranean caverns filled with water that the Yucatan region is famous for.

 Sheinbaum seems convinced that the best course is to continue building Mexico’s train to nowhere and other disastrous policies of Mexico's Morena party.  

 The rise to power of the Morena Party has occurred concurrently with a revived historical interest in a 19th-century dictator, Porfirio Diaz. Obrador, also known as AMLO, was a self-described fan of Porifio Diaz. Diaz ruled the cornucopia-shaped country with an iron fist for 31 years prior to the Mexican Revolution in 1911. He is perhaps best remembered abroad for his quip about Mexican-American relations. "Poor Mexico — so far from God, and yet so close to the United States."

 Though typically seen as a left-wing party the Moreana Party is no typical leftist institution. Given its rough shod enviornmental policies it might best be described as Neo-Porifirato. After all, it has pursued policies associated with a long dead Mexican dictator.

 Diaz once had a notorious reputation due to his suppression of civil liberties, genocide of the Yaqui tribe, and other crimes. Diaz was keen to unleash the Mexican army the so-called “Federales” in policing actions against his opponents. The “Federales” entered the English language as a feared police agency long before terms like KGB and Gestapo made their way into English.  The hatred of Diaz was the one thing that united various revolutionaries in the Mexican Revolution, from Pancho Villa to Emiliano Zapata.

 Under Lopez Obrador, the rehabilitation of the Mexican dictator's image has continued a pace. The Mexican legislature has even considered returning the remains of the once-hatred dictator from France to Mexico. Scholars in other languages have followed a similar path. There has never been no similar rapproachment with the various royal pretenders to the Mexican throne.

 Obrador doubled down on the sort of policies Porifio Diaz would have understood about railroads and  increased reliance on the military for police matters.

 "If, from one end of the republic to the other, the train, with its powerful voice, awakens and mobilizes all Mexicans, then my desires will have been satisfied,” Diaz once said.

 While Sheinbaum has given lip service to expanding alternative sources of energy she has also preached expansion of the state-run fossil fuel company Pemex. This is despite the fact that the company has only seen diminishing returns due to rising costs of production. It is now heavily in debt.

 Like a runaway train, the neo-Porfiato policies of the Morena Party steam ahead despite the costs.

 Diaz rose to prominence during the 1860s, fighting against French efforts to restore the monarchy in Mexico and forge a new empire. Such are the contradictions inherent in Diaz, that he would choose to live his exile in Paris. This would be a bit like Joe Biden choosing to retire to Kabul.

 His contemporaries compared Diaz to France's Louis the XIV, the Sun King, whose long-reign papered over deep divisions that eventually exploded into civil war.

 AMLO and Sheibaum must ensure that it is not their legacy as well. Reportedly, some 186,000 people were murdered during the term of Lopez Obrador, more than any other Mexican president. Thus, the murder rate of the country of 128 million is three times that of the United States. The economy has grown at a disappointing 2-3% in recent years. Extreme poverty has not decreased despite AMLO's cash transfer scheme (something that Sheibaum promised to keep intact).

 The power of Mexican cartels has continued to grow. Cocaine and illegal drugs from Mexico are headed not only to the United States and Canada but, increasingly, Europe.

 Mexican narcotics traffickers are increasingly spreading their influence in Europe – notably Spain. Cocaine cartels with deep Mexican ties have also launched assassinations across Europe – including of a prominent Dutch journalist. In this context, it is worth noting a DEA investigation that was abruptly halted may have helped finance AMLO's political ambitions, according to ProPublica.

 Border security continued to decline under AMLO, and the worrying number of would-be migrants with ties to terrorist groups crossing the U.S. border is disconcerting.

 The European Union should be cautious and press the Mexican government on issues of concern, most notably narcotics trafficking, which is claiming lives in Europe and elsewhere.

 On other security issues vital to Europe, Mexico is even less helpful. AMLO routinely criticized efforts to arm and support Ukraine's war of self-defense.

 Earlier this year the European Investment Bank for Mexico, among a plethora of representatives from other institutions, trumped out to Yucatan for  a conference on the economic potential of the seaweed which currently has ruined many a vacation to Cancun and elsewhere on the Yucatan peninsula.  A follow-up event in Granada, Spain later this year as part of a Mexico-EU will continue discussions on that issue.

 The foul-smelling seaweed, a blight on Mexico's picturesque coastlines, serves as a poignant metaphor for the nation's current state. Just as the floating sargassum drifts aimlessly across the Yucatan's turquoise waters, so too does Mexico's political and environmental direction seem to be swayed by external currents and internal inconsistencies. With Mexico's new president, the European Union must tread cautiously.

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