This is not the first time that AMLO has announced a “break“with another government, even though this figure has no basis in international diplomacy.”Due to cultural differences between countries, codes were established to express any discontent between them. One can recall one’s ambassador for consultation, declare him persona non grata and even break relations with another country. But the term pause does not exist, it is an invention of López Obrador.”, he comments to The Trade Mexican internationalist Brenda Estefan.
Despite this, in February 2022 López Obrador took charge of “pauses“relations with Spain after the letter in which he proposed that the kingdom apologize for the crimes committed during the Conquest received no response.
Esa “break”, however, did not bring with it major consequences in the functioning of the embassies or in the formal relations between both governments.
A few months later, in December, AMLO announced that he would adopt the same measure with Peru, after Pedro Castillo was arrested following the thwarting of his attempted self-coup.
On that occasion, the Mexican government decided not to recognize Dina Boluarte as president of Peru, but kept its ambassador in the country until both were declared persona non grata by the Peruvian Congress. To date, the Mexican government only maintains one chargé d’affaires in Lima.
The difference in consequences and reactions between one case and the other represents, precisely, the risks of using terms that are not framed within the international rules of the game, warns Estefan.
“We can say what I understand or what you understand, but the problem now is what the United States or Canada will understand.“, he notes.
– The main partners –
In an attempt to explain his “diplomatic pauses”, AMLO assured that “It means that we are going to give ourselves our time”. Although his rhetoric then reached a new level of confusion when he pointed out that this only applied to the ambassadors of both countries and not to their governments.
Last week, the US diplomatic representative in Mexico, Ken Salazar, said that the government’s reform, which will allow, among other things, judges to be elected by popular vote, was a risk to democracy. His Canadian counterpart, Graeme Clark, added to the concern, saying that he was not trying to interfere in the internal affairs, but making it clear that it was causing concern among businessmen in his country.
The opposition, UN experts, international financial organizations and investors have expressed their fears about the consequences that could be brought about by the reform that AMLO has been insistently promoting for years and for which he has managed to pave the way thanks to the legislative majority obtained for the next period.
“The point is that embassies serve to manage shared interests or problems with another country. How are we going to put a pause on the lives of the 38.2 million people of Mexican origin who live in the United States? Or on the 1.5 million dollars per minute that are traded between Mexico and the United States?“, the expert questions.
And that is precisely what marks the great line of difference between what a “break“with Spain or Peru compared to what it would mean to do so with the United States and Canada, its two main trading partners.
“Due to decades of decisions in our country we are commercially integrated with North America. It is a myth that internal decisions are only internal, as is the case with those they make.” says Estefan, who highlights that one in every four jobs in her country is related to the economic treaty that exists between Mexico, the United States and Canada.
“44% of foreign direct investment in Mexico so far this year has come from the United States and 7% from Canada. We are talking about more than 50% coming from two countries that we will now put on ‘pause’“, he warns.
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– Interference or not –
AMLO has tried to justify his position by assuring that he rejects any type of “foreign interference“on a topic that only concerns Mexicans and this Thursday 29th he assured that the relationship with the United States will be”very good” depending on the “respect for sovereignty“that their authorities show.
An argument that seems almost ironic coming from a president who has on more than one occasion interfered in the affairs of other countries, including Peru.
The Peruvian Foreign Ministry denounced at the time that both AMLO and his foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, were interfering during the crisis unleashed by Castillo’s attempted self-coup.
We are talking about a head of state who on the one hand criticized the “interventionism” of the OAS after denouncing the fraud perpetrated by Nicolás Maduro in the last presidential elections, but on the other hand he claimed that Evo Morales had been the victim of a coup d’état and called on Latinos in the United States not to vote for Senator John Kennedy, because he was very arrogant and rude.
“We can see that for the president the principle of non-intervention has been governed by his ideological vision. He intervenes or not according to his affiliations”Estefan says.