Mary Anastasia O’Grady has been writing in the pages of the WSJ for more than two decades that Latin America is on the brink of socialism. He did it with Castro, with Chávez, with López Obrador and now with Sheinbaum Pardo.
Mexico City, November 10 (However).- The columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady wrote again yesterday about Mexico: This time, your target is Chairwoman Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP). In his most recent column published in The Wall Street Journalassures that the Mexican president faces a wave of homicides and that should be inspired by the strategy of the former president Colombian Alvaro Uribe to stop the violence.
“He Colombian Álvaro Uribe showed how to stop the violence facing it.” With that phrase he opens his text “The President of Mexico have a problem murders”, where the conservative journalist takes as her starting point the crimes of local officials, which for her show the continuity of the failure of security inherited from the former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
O’Grady claims that in the 13 months since Sheinbaum Pardo took office, nine municipal presidents have been assassinated. The first eight homicides, he says, went almost unnoticed, but the ninth, that of Mayor Carlos Manzo, which occurred on November 1, “has provoked national indignation.”
According to the columnist, Uruapan faces the same criminal networks that control large areas of the country, which made Mayor Manzo, “murdered at point-blank range in a public square”, a local symbol after criticizing the Morenoist Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla for his passivity towards criminal groups.
— MaryAnastasiaO’Grady (@MaryAnastasiaOG) November 9, 2025
The president’s response, O’Grady writes, is to promise better intelligence capabilities, more military resources and address the root causes of violence. But he warns that with this strategy, “he appears to be trying to distance himself from his predecessor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who sought to appease criminal groups.”
“Its expansion of social programs does not address the root problem. Mexico needs defense of life and property rights at the local, state and federal level,” he maintains.
O’Grady dedicates a good part of the text to comparing Sheinbaum with former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, whom he presents as an example of how to confront crime with “moral clarity” and leave “good lessons.”
Remember that Uribe came to power in 2002 with a strategy to “restore the presence and authority of the State,” as well as to “strengthen and professionalize the armed forces” under the motto of democratic security. Although he acknowledges that he failed to stop the “voracious American appetite for cocaine,” he highlights that he recovered Colombian territory and reduced extortion and kidnapping networks.
According to the author, Sheinbaum faces López Obrador’s legacy of institutional corruption, including within the Armed Forces, as well as “apparent links between Morena and the cartels.” In his opinion, Morena “prefers a centralized government, when lasting peace will require decentralization and more resources for the local police.”
For her, the President of Mexico “blames her opponents for promoting violence,” but O’Grady replies that during the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), who directly confronted the cartels, there were “almost 30,000 fewer homicides” than in the following six-year terms. “López Obrador’s ‘hugs, not bullets’ strategy left a record number of 151,000 dead,” he adds.
To conclude, he states: “The lesson that both Colombia and Mexico leave us is that a government that does not defend the life and property of citizens invites more chaos and misery.”
Who is Mary Anastasia O’Grady?
But beyond the text, the figure who signs it is what generates interest. Who is Mary Anastasia O’Grady? And why do his columns on Latin America arouse so much echo among the most conservative sectors of Washington?
Mary Anastasia O’Grady is an opinion columnist on the Americas at The Wall Street Journalwhere he writes the weekly column “The Americas”, dedicated to politics, economics, and business in Latin America and Canada.
She joined the newspaper in 1995, was named senior editorial page writer in 1999 and a member of the editorial board in 2005. She also serves on the board of directors of the Liberty Fund, a liberal think tank based in Indianapolis.
Throughout his career he has published dozens of columns critical of progressive or left-wing governments in the region. In the 2000s he supported versions of the US Government that accused Fidel Castro of developing biological weapons; in 2007 he linked Hugo Chávez with Islamic terrorist groups; and later suggested that Andrés Manuel López Obrador had ideological affinities with Iran and Venezuela.
Its editorial line usually warns about the risks of populism in Latin America, and defends economic policies based on the free market, private property and cooperation with the US.
O’Grady has received various awards, including the Walter Judd Freedom Award (2012), the Thomas Jefferson Award from the Association for the Education of Private Business (2009), and the Bastiat Journalism Prize (2005), for his articles on the World Bank, the underground economy in Brazil, and US economic policies in the region.
— MaryAnastasiaO’Grady (@MaryAnastasiaOG) October 12, 2025
She has a bachelor’s degree in English from Assumption College and a master’s degree in Financial Management from Pace University.