Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met last week, and its agreements will force Mexico to decide which side of the world chessboard it should be on. The subject of discussion at the NATO meeting was the defense of Ukraine. However, the background for the debate was the positioning of Western liberal democracies in the face of the bloc of countries with authoritarian and populist regimes, led by China and, secondarily, by Russia, including North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, among others.
The meeting, held in Washington, had a noisy media element, the questioning of Biden’s candidacy for the presidency of the United States due to his advanced age and lack of mental acuity. However, the substance of the meeting was not about Biden but about what the 32 member countries of the alliance agreed, given their geopolitical relationship with the bloc of autocratic and/or dictatorial regimes of the so-called “anti-liberal bloc.”
The central theme of the meeting was the definition of the collective of countries in the face of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine. It was considered that Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine should be unhesitatingly rejected. They advocate relations between states based on respect for international laws, especially respect for the territorial integrity of nations and the pursuit of dialogue to resolve disputes between nations.
Nations that unreservedly respect these rules of conduct can be considered nations based on international norms and laws. Nations that do not respect those laws of conduct and that transgress the sovereign rights of other nations cannot be considered regimes based on the international rule of law. This is the dividing line between democracies and authoritarianism and/or populism.
Russia has justified its invasion of Ukraine by claiming that it is a “Nazi-inspired” regime, even though, ironically, it is one of the few countries in the world with a Jewish president (Israel, Argentina, and Mexico are the others). The other Russian justification has been that Ukraine supposedly wanted to join NATO, which for Russia meant having the enemy cantoned on its border. At some point before the invasion, Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, stated that he would not promote such integration to maintain Ukrainian neutrality between East and West. Despite that peace offer, Putin invaded Ukraine, and war broke out. Now, it is a direct war between democracies and autocracies.
In this context, and after more than two years of bloody war, the NATO meeting in Washington declared that Ukraine’s membership in its organization is “irreversible”. Consequently, NATO commits its arms and money to achieve the ultimate goal of the war: the military, political, and economic defeat of Putin’s Russia. Without saying so but inferring, the West declared war on Russia.
Along with that declaration of open and transparent hostility to Russia, NATO also declared that China is the main material, economic, and political backer and supporter of the Russian war machine in its invasion of Ukraine. Consequently, all NATO member countries open a new front of hostility against China for its complicity in the war of its “unconditional” Russian ally.
The meeting in Washington declared a global confrontation with Russia, China, and its allies. What does the elevation of global hostilities between the West and the East mean for Mexico? It has impacted Mexico economically, politically, militarily, and in terms of national security.
Let us start with the most recent event. The United States forced Mexico to stop the passage of Chinese steel and aluminum to its neighbor, surreptitiously taking benefit of the advantages of the T-MEC and evading the taxes on products that Washington imposes on China. López Obrador wanted to present it as a Mexican “victory” without mentioning China’s name. The reality is that Washington folded Mexico’s hand because AMLO had allowed the mischief of sending steel and aluminum from China to the United States, pretending they were Mexican products. Mexico has been China’s ally against the United States in trade matters.
The next step is to impose high taxation on Chinese electric vehicles that they want to import into the United States through the Mexican border and limit the importation of spare parts. For now, the intention is to prevent the installation of plants to build Chinese vehicles in Mexico. In addition, restrictions are being imposed on using Chinese equipment for Mexican customs at its northern border.
Let’s be clear: when global conflicts between powers are becoming more acute, it is impossible to pretend to be friends. If you are a friend of one, you are not a friend of the other. You can maintain diplomatic relations with everyone, but you cannot be a commercial ally of one and a political ally of the other. There is no such thing.
The Mexican army is a member of the Northern Command, along with the United States and Canada. There, it shares sensitive intelligence on military, economic, espionage, and preparations for containment actions against enemy forces. The United States demanded its Mexican counterpart stop buying spare parts for its Russian helicopters. The Mexican army accepted this condition, distancing Mexico from Russian military influences. It brings its Armed Forces closer to dependence on Western weapons from the United States, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
As long as Mexico allows Russia to have its largest spy station in the world in our country while expelling the DEA and limiting the CIA, there will be serious doubts about Mexico’s reliability as an ally of the West.
On this point, the existential doubt is whether AMLO’s corrupting effort towards the high command of the Mexican Army will cause it to deviate from its relationship with the Northern Command and associate more with the Russians and Chinese. Lopez Obrador’s preference for the Russians and Chinese as strategic allies is obvious. What happens is that his preference is ideological, but it goes against the political, economic, and social reality of Mexico.
There is pressure for Mexico to limit its trade relations with China and Russia more concertedly. One expression of the growing pressure is the closure of Chinese-owned shopping malls in downtown Mexico City. The pretext is civil protection, but the political explanation is the increasing pressure on the Mexican government to define whose side it is on. With the West or with the East? To close, or not, the influx of Chinese business into Mexico? That is the question.
Given NATO’s declaration of hardening in Washington, the space for flirting with both sides of the world chessboard is noticeably reduced. Mexico can maintain diplomatic relations with whomever it wants, but it cannot be an ally of whomever it wants. As the terrain of conflict between economic, political, military, national security, and intelligence blocks expands, the Morena government will have to define exactly on whose side Mexico’s best interests lie and act accordingly.
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