Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
It would have been better if Claudia Sheinbaum’s office had not published the list of countries that had agreed to attend her inauguration. It is a starved and poor list, reflecting how low our country has fallen in international esteem. The foreign policy in 6 years with political ambassadorial appointments bought in a wrong way, with clumsy interventionism in other countries while preaching the opposite and disregard for the real centers of power, have produced, as a consequence, this paltry list.
The list and its publication reflect something troubling about the new foreign affairs team. While there is nothing that cannot be corrected, it indicates that the new President’s inner circle operates with severe workshop blindness. Apparently, this team needs to recognize that Mexico’s isolation from the world is the result of a deliberate foreign policy implemented by the six-year term that is coming to an end.
And this international policy is based on apparently unconfessable and, therefore, unspoken considerations. To put it crudely, AMLO’s heart beats with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in Latin America. And globally, with the bloc composed of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. And he does not declare it, but it is a shameful policy.
It is noticeable because he has gone against Latin American nations inclined to social democracy, Christian Democrats, or flatly, liberals. He has also gone against the bloc led by the United States, Great Britain, and the European Union.
When AMLO read a long text before Biden at the White House, he said that China was the number one power in the world and that the United States was already a declining power. There and then, Biden refuted this with concrete data.
But, pragmatically, AMLO knows that he could not break ties with the United States and Canada due to the strong economic partnership between the countries that signed the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC and the many millions of Mexicans living in the neighboring country.
But, in order not to ultimately betray himself, AMLO did not break with the United States, except for the current “pause”, but he spent his six-year term looking for direct and indirect ways to insult the government of that country. That behavior was registered there. Therefore, it was easy for the U.S. to organize the extraction of Mayo Zambada without having the slightest need to inform the Mexican government or respond to subsequent pleas for information about the event—one for another.
AMLO hands Sheinbaum a relationship with the United States at a low point and in a state of “pause” on both sides. The guest list reflects this.
For the European Union, Mexico’s de facto support of the Russian side in the war in Ukraine is a direct offense. This leads the Europeans to assume that Mexico could presumably support a Russian invasion of other parts of European territory. In no way does this reflect a friendly relationship between nations. They are in a war of survival and see the enemy’s posture in the Mexican attitude.
In the case of Latin America, the Mexican ambassadors in Havana, Managua, and Caracas are more militants of the Bolivarian Movement than of Morena. All three are agitators in favor of the cause of those governments, and something similar could be said of the Mexican ambassador in Moscow. They are faithful representatives of AMLO’s political thinking. That is why Mexico, for example, has not spoken out against Maduro’s electoral fraud in Venezuela. Besides AMLO’s support for the scam, his ambassador would not allow him to denounce the Venezuelan regime.
This is to say that Mexico applies a crafty and double-faced foreign policy, a fact that the rest of the world has already registered. It is not a secret. It is visible and has been confirmed in the distrust that the serious governments of the world have for our country.
Hence, the famished and low-level attendance list at Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration. The fundamental solution to this perception is to define itself clearly at a time in humanity’s history when the new great blocks of the world are being defined.
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are leading a bloc. The United States, Canada, the European Union, Great Britain, Australia, and Japan head the other bloc. It is not possible to play at ambivalence or hypocrisy in these times. The global alignments of forces and countries are what they are, and Mexico is a weak link in this game, a product of its own weaknesses and mistakes. We could be in a position of strength if we did not play a game of undefined for six years.
The incoming government has the possibility of assuming clear positions in terms of the real national interest, which is with the bloc headed by the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC, or continuing to play ideological hide-and-seek with the world and perpetuating its weakness. It is time for definitions.
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