IF Conditional Sentences Using Could + V2

Question

If you could managed to reduce the crime rate and more promotion towards tourism in Mexico, I believe Mexico could easily be one of the top 10 most visited countries in the world.

a) What is the meaning of above sentence in given context? Does it referring to future of Mexico's Tourism or Past of Mexican tourism.

For context read below Link.

https://www.quora.com/Can-Mexico-turn-to-China-or-Russia-for-greater-trade-if-the-U-S-A-decides-to-place-higher-tariffs-on-trade-over-the-payments-of-the-border-wall

Brief.

I have doubt because of use of "If You could Managed". What Does it mean, i.e. controlling Crime rate is referring to past or future or present.

Also, I think It should be "If you could manage to reduce..........." for referring future course.

Answer 1

You are correct that the example sentence is using the wrong verb tense. The correct sentence would be:

If you could manage to reduce the crime rate and do more promotion towards tourism in Mexico, I believe Mexico could easily be one of the top 10 most visited countries in the world.

Notice that I changed "managed" -> "manage" and I added the verb "do".

What this sentence means is that if the rate of crime were to go down in Mexico, and more efforts were put towards promoting tourism, that more people would visit Mexico in the future.

Alternatively, you could use the verb "managed" like this:

If you managed to reduce the crime rate and did more promotion towards tourism in Mexico, I believe Mexico could easily be one of the top 10 most visited countries in the world.

However, there is a subtle difference between this and the first example. The first example implies that the person being spoken to might be unable to reduce the crime rate. The second sentence does not refer at all to their ability to reduce crime, and only speaks of what would happen if they did it.