Brian Winter, vice president of AS/COA, spoke with PBS’s NewsHour about the visit Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro paid to President Donald Trump. "There's really no other leader anywhere in the world who has so openly tried to copy the Donald Trump model in terms of both substance and style. That was really what both leaders wanted, to a certain extent, some validation," said Winter about Bolsonaro. 

On how Bolsonaro won the presidency, Winter commented, "In Brazil's case, where they were still immersed in many respects in the worst recession in their history, a country with 63,000 homicides per year, with a massive corruption scandal, a lot of voters heard those kinds of comments and thought, 'Aha, this is a guy who is going to do things differently in Brasília, in the capital.' And so that's why he's in office."

Panelists:

• Carlos Bravo Regidor, Professor, Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE); Columnist, Reforma
• Jorge Guajardo, Senior Director, McLarty Associates 
• Valeria Moy, Director, México, ¿Cómo Vamos?; Columnist, Milenio
• Brian Winter, Editor-in-Chief, Americas Quarterly; Vice President, Policy, Americas Society/Council of the Americas (moderator)

Two months into the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Americas Quarterly and AS/COA convened leading Mexican experts to discuss the country's political and economic trajectory in the coming year and beyond. Panelists discussed how the markets are reacting to López Obrador's policy proposals, with Valeria Moy noting: "The markets have been extremely lenient." When asked who AMLO turns to for advice, Jorge Guajardo answered: "No one other than his whim." As moderator, Brian Winter asked how panelists see the president achieving the changes demanded by the electorate, CIDE's Carlos Bravo Regidor suggested that, to give AMLO the benefit of the doubt, the disruptive nature of the start of his administration may well relate to what change looks like in Mexico. "Why wouldn't change be messy?" he asked.

• Read at Americas Quarterly: AMLO 2019 — A Primer on Mexico's New Government
• Follow the first 100 days of AMLO's presidency.