MEXICO CITY _ Donald Trump has attracted widespread hostility in Mexico for his threats to deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, and to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the wake of Monday night's presidential debate, some analysts here were disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not do better.
"Clinton wins the debate; the key question is if this first debate stops the momentum of Trump," Arturo Sarukan, a former Mexican ambassador in Washington, said on Twitter. "Not yet I think."
Another former Mexican diplomat, Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, also noted that Clinton failed to achieve an overwhelming victory.
"Hillary wins by points when she needed a knockout," Castellanos wrote.
Likewise, Mauricio Meschoulam, a professor of international relations, didn't view the first debate as a game changer.
"I don't see where this manages to change the tendencies," wrote Meschoulam.
During the debate, Trump repeated his charges that U.S. jobs were flowing to Mexico and that the North American Free Trade Agreement was a bust for the United States.
But Mexico did not figure as a major theme in the debate.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported from Tokyo that the debate seemed to contribute to a moderate rebound for the Mexican peso, which plummeted to a record low of almost 20 to the U.S. dollar last week. Some analysts have seen Trump's recent rise in the polls as part of the reason behind the peso's recent decline.
The Mexican currency rose 1.7 percent to 19.5415 to the dollar as of late morning Tuesday Tokyo time, Bloomberg reported, "a sign investors may perceive Hillary Clinton outperformed Donald Trump in the first U.S. presidential debate."
