Many of these plans will in all likelihood not come to fruition. Government revenues were down 7.5 percent in January; the economy cooled down in October and barely grew in January. Mexico’s new governments always need time to carry out their plans. Some have had a major impact during their first 100 days, like Carlos Salinas in 1988-99, or Felipe Calderón in 2006-07; others less so. There is always a learning curve, particularly after the end of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, or P.R.I., in 2000. But in Mr. López Obrador’s case the sheer incompetence of his cabinet is a major obstacle to his promises’ becoming policies. Additionally, growing violence throughout the country ensures that the process for this government will be even more drawn out.

So it is not just a matter of the practical difficulties in handing out money in ways that free market theorists like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman would not have dreamed of, but also that there is no money to hand out. Most economists are now forecasting a sharp decline in government revenues and spending this year, as well as a decline in foreign and private domestic investment. They estimate a 1 percent growth in the gross domestic product at best, perhaps less.

January was also Mexico’s bloodiest month since records on homicides have been kept. December was no better. Pressure from Washington to crack down on shipments of cocaine from Colombia and fentanyl from China, and increasing poppy cultivation in several Mexican states suggests no end to the violence. This, in turn, will continue to frighten investors and tourists.

He has shown authoritarian, demagogic inclinations, and there are virtually no institutional counterweights in Mexico today. Mr. López Obrador is filling Supreme Court vacancies with his supporters, and the political opposition is in complete disarray. The only opposition exists in the markets and the punditocracy.

Hopefully the few existing checks and balances and economic realities will ensure that he does a minimum amount of harm. But given the nature of his rhetoric, this is unlikely. How will Mr. López Obrador react when reality sets in and he discovers he can’t fulfill his promises? The reckoning may be sooner than later.

Jorge G. Castañeda, Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2003, is a professor at New York University and the author of “Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War.”

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