Global Solutions, Local Nuances: Reflections from Three Forums

Sebastian Galindo, MPP Class of 2027, reflects on his experience attending UChicago forums on Peru, Mexico, and China. 

As an MPP student at the Harris School of Public Policy, I spend most of my days studying technical tools: microeconomic theories, institutional frameworks, causal inference, and other statistical methods. But beyond the classroom, I am happy that I was able to connect that knowledge to specific, real problems. This year, three forums on Peru, Mexico, and China reminded me that while the tools of policy may be universal, the problems never are. Solutions worth having are global in ambition and local in texture.

The Perú forum brought together University Professor James Robinson, former President  of Peru Francisco Sagasti, diplomats, and private sector leaders to discuss institutional strengthening, democracy, macroeconomic stability, and the role of private capital. It was incredible to see how the conversation refused to stay technical. Panels on growth flowed naturally into panels on culture, language, and identity: a reminder that you cannot strengthen institutions without understanding the people who build and benefit from them. Hearing a former head of state and one of the world's leading scholars on development analyze the same country from such different perspectives taught me that there is never a “one size fits all” solution.

The Mexico forum reframed something I thought I understood. With participation from Mexico's Consulate in Chicago, members of the electoral council, and economic leaders, the discussions ranged from the power of cities as diplomatic actors to judicial elections and their democratic implications. The conversation that mattered most to me centered on the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the future of North American integration. With the agreement's review approaching, the panelists made clear that what is at stake goes far beyond tariffs: supply chains, labor mobility, energy policy, and the economic future of an entire region depend on how the three countries choose to cooperate. For Mexico, the agreement is not just a trade framework. It is a development strategy.

The China forum took on a hard question: how East and West can move from rivalry toward cooperation, and what shared global leadership might look like. In a moment when headlines push us toward zero-sum thinking, the forum insisted on a different premise: that the world's two largest powers have more to gain from building together than from building walls.

I learned three sets of challenges in each forum, and one truth: diversity of thought is key. Peru's institutional debates, Mexico's regional integration, and China's questions of global cooperation each offer a piece of a larger puzzle. Democratic backsliding and economic integration are global problems, but they will not be solved by a single playbook written in one language.

What these forums explored is what good policy requires: putting a former president next to an academic, a consul next to an economist, and letting genuinely different perspectives collide. If my time at Harris has taught me anything, it is that the best global solutions are not imposed from above. They are carefully assembled from local nuances.