MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president proposed sweeping constitutional reforms in a speech on Monday, including measures to overhaul the judiciary, electoral law, pensions, and environmental regulations, just months before a presidential election.

“The reforms that I propose seek to establish constitutional rights and strengthen ideals and principles related to humanism, justice, honesty, austerity and democracy,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a speech in the capital, Mexico City, on Mexico’s Constitution Day, a national holiday.

The leftist Mr. Lopez Obrador and his allies do not have the two-thirds super majority in Congress needed to change the constitution, but the proposed reforms are expected to shape the political debate ahead of the June presidential vote.

Former Mexico City mayor and ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is currently leading in the polls to succeed Mr. Lopez Obrador, who by law can only serve one six-year term.

The 20 constitutional reforms Mr. Lopez Obrador announced included cutting the number of lawmakers in the Lower House of Congress and Senate, electing judges by direct vote, and reducing spending for political campaigns and political parties.

They would also mandate annual increases in minimum wage above inflation, outlaw fracking and open-pit mining, limit water concessions in areas of the country grappling with water shortages, and increase scholarships for impoverished children.

He said the aim of the reforms are to “reorient the state to put it at the service of the people.”

The proposed constitutional reforms would be handed to the Lower House of Congress for discussion later on Monday, he said. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has sent five senior US Treasury officials to Beijing this week for economic talks that will include China’s “non-market” policies that are adding excess industrial capacity, a Treasury official said on Monday.

The delegation, led by Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs Jay Shambaugh, planned to hold frank conversations on Monday and Tuesday as part of the US-China Economic Working Group about Beijing subsidies that the US says encourage overproduction of goods, potentially flooding global markets.

Affected industries include electric vehicles, a sector whose development in the United States the Biden administration is trying to boost with its own tax subsidies.

The group will discuss the US and Chinese economic outlooks, investment screening regimes for national security in both countries, and opportunities to cooperate on climate change and debt relief to poor countries, the Treasury official said.

The emphasis on China’s industrial subsidies comes as the Biden administration is continuing a review of US tariffs imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports by former President Donald Trump.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other senior administration officials have called for the punitive duties of up to 25% to be shifted to a more strategic focus.

Mr. Trump, the expected Republican presidential nominee, has signaled he would double down on stronger tariffs if elected, calling for China’s most-favored nation trading status to be revoked, a move that would effectively raise nearly all tariffs on Chinese goods. President Biden is expected to take a tough but more nuanced approach to China.

The meeting is the third since Secretary Yellen and her Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, launched the group in September alongside the parallel Financial Working Group.

That group met in Beijing in late January, with Treasury officials receiving assurances that Chinese banks were “doing well” despite China’s real estate and financial market turmoil, according to Ms. Yellen.

The meetings are the first for the economic group in Beijing. The group last met in San Francisco ahead of November’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit after an initial virtual meeting. — Reuters

SYDNEY — Australia looks set to pass a reshaped tax cuts bill, that would give low-income earners more breaks and trim benefits to the wealthy, as the opposition pledged support on Tuesday after initially criticizing the government’s shift in policy.

The conservative opposition’s decision came as the parliament resumed after a two-month recess.

The center-left Labor government has been promoting the new tax policy, unveiled last month, saying it would benefit more Australians. But the opposition criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for breaking an election pledge that he would not modify the tax policy, legislated by the previous conservative coalition government in 2019.

Mr. Albanese has defended the changes citing broad financial pressure on families from high inflation.

“It’s the right decision done for the right reasons at the right time. And that’s what we’ll be advocating in the parliament,” the prime minister told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

Under the new policy, more people will fall into lower tax brackets from July 1 and tax cuts for the wealthy would likely halve, with the savings redirected to those on low incomes.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton blamed Labor for the country’s high inflation but said he would not stand in the way of providing support to “Australians who are doing it tough”.

“The prime minister has made this change for his own political survival. We are supporting this change not to support the prime minister’s lie but to support those families who need help now,” Mr. Dutton said during a press briefing.

Mr. Albanese is trying to lift his approval ratings with his promise of higher tax breaks for the majority of Australians as his Labor party battles to retain the federal seat of Dunkley in a by-election set for March 2.

A Newspoll survey for The Australian newspaper out on Monday showed 62% of voters supported the government’s decision though Mr. Albanese’s ratings remained largely unchanged. On a two-party preferred basis, Labor led the opposition 52-48%. — Reuters