For the second consecutive day, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador exploded against the United States government in a continued reaction to his anger over the annual report on human rights released by the State Department this Monday. On Tuesday he demanded that they respect and not interfere in Mexico’s internal affairs, and on Wednesday, perhaps because they ignored him in Washington and did not offer him the apology he would have expected, he escalated the epithets. I call them unserious and liars, an ossified and decadent country that, he said, has to be renewed.
Much shouting and little talk.
The President’s indignation should have been consistent and he should have instructed the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, to call the American ambassador, Ken Salazar, and ask for explanations or make him strange, rejecting the report that Foggy Bottom makes every year on 200 countries and territories in the world. He did not do it. Apparently, from what he answered to a specific question in the morning, it didn’t even occur to him. He also does not seem to know or understand that the inputs they use in Washington to prepare the reports are based on the diplomatic cables sent to them by their embassy; that is, Salazar.
López Obrador’s shouts are something they are used to in the United States government. They already know that he does it for domestic consumption and sometimes as a distraction from deep problems, and they don’t pay attention to him. He does it only when they think or see that the anger is transferred to the immigration issue and that he allows undocumented immigrants to enter freely, against what was agreed, whose final destination is the United States, so to appease him and continue doing what they asked him, a wall on the southern border, they issue a balm in the form of a declaration. They have done it at other times, thereby calming the President, although nothing fundamentally changes.
In terms of the bilateral relationship, the substance is what matters to Washington, while the form is the only thing that worries López Obrador.
The same day that he exploded against the State Department, what happened in the background in the relationship were important concessions and assignments from Mexico to the United States.
In the morning, at the request of the President, the Senate authorized the entry into Mexico of special forces from the United States Department of Defense, armed with their war equipment, to give training courses. This unusual action went almost unnoticed, but for a President who presumes to know history, the fact that American troops set foot on Mexican territory since the expedition of that country’s Army to pursue Francisco Villa, the contradiction between his management and his claim shows its double expensive.
The approval in the Senate was due to a request that López Obrador made, in November of last year, for 11 armed US soldiers to enter Mexico to give a training course from January to March. That income was limited. What they now authorized to the President was the entry of 180 elements of the Parachute Company of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army, which is an elite rapid action unit specialized in parachute assault operations in hostile areas.
And in the afternoon, the Secretary of Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, announced tariffs on 544 Asian products because they were undervalued and at low prices, which were displacing Mexican producers. The Mexican decision coincides with the claims that the White House trade representative, Katherine Tai, has made to Buenrostro since October, and subsequent pressure from legislators to demand that she express to Mexico the unfair competition that she is causing. Whether or not that was the motivation of the Mexican government, it should serve to depressurize the growing trade conflict that was being created.
The President said that they are not serious in the United States government and that there are different positions in the Biden administration. For López Obrador, those who criticize his government in Washington and release reports such as those from the State Department, “are managed by the international right… a right-wing international supported by the United States; “We know that those are the hitters, the hawks.”
That is what is not serious: that the international right makes decisions in the State Department above the White House? Does it pose a clash between the president and the secretary of state? They are fireworks to distract their domestic audiences and political clienteles, seeking internal cohesion in the external enemy, and a sound form to not respond to the content. They cannot do so because the accusations are documented in Mexico and a good part of what they included in the sections are public acts of pressure and harassment by the President. Like the attacks on the president of the Supreme Court, Norma Piña, where López Obrador’s response was one of annoyance because they recorded what he admitted yesterday, the confrontation against the Judiciary.
López Obrador described the report on human rights as a “joke.” But what he is doing with these answers is a joke. If he really wanted to fundamentally change the terms of the relationship, he would not say that he would maintain cooperation with the United States. He would suspend it in its entirety, not just ephemerally, as he did recently in protest of investigations that link him to drug trafficking, and would stop complying with the demands of the White House on immigration, the fight against fentanyl, trade or strategic industries. who want them to settle in Mexico with resources from the United States to guarantee their supply chain.
But López Obrador cannot break with the United States, even if he wants to, because Mexico’s economy would collapse. He is the right thing in terms of the country, but he could also do something more than useless shouting and reproaches in the morning circus, such as a formal and direct protest with Salazar first, Blinken later, and ending with Biden. That would be serious, not a political pantomime to save face.
