Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
López Obrador’s government applies a foreign policy full of empty rhetoric and cover-up hypocrisy. Examples abound and are also surprising. And, when discovered, they undermine and degrade Mexico’s credibility in the eyes of friends and foes alike. The world registers Mexico’s deceitful behavior with skepticism.
The President sent a video to the recent CELAC meeting with an extreme left-wing ideological line polarizing not only with liberal or right-wing Latin American governments but even with left-wing social democratic governments. He sounded more akin to the repressive regime of Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and a close ally of the Cuban dictatorship. He exalted Evo Morales, a frequent violator of the Bolivian Constitution, and positioned himself as a defender of the failed coup attempt of the incompetent and clumsy Pedro Castillo in Peru.
At the same time, when he recently met with the leaders of the United States and Canada, Lopez Obrador avoided talking about disputes over their policies in the biomedical, corn, and clean energy sectors. He has even called for a large demonstration in the capital’s Zócalo on March 18 in defense of the 1938 oil expropriation and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). The idea is to make it publicly clear that his “energy sovereignty” policy is immovable. In essence, he wants people to think that Mexico does not surrender to “the powerful”.
At the same time, he is the clearest Latin American defender of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has been publicly congratulated twice by the Russian embassy in Mexico for his pronouncements in favor of Russian imperial pretensions in the central Eurasian plateau. First, when he proposed a “peace plan” that basically endorses Russia’s territorial conquests in Ukraine. And more recently, when Mexico condemned sending Western tanks to Ukraine to resist the coming Russian offensive in that independent country. Lopez Obrador’s Mexico believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is justified.
Before the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly, the Mexican ambassador maintained a position contrary to what was said and expressed by President López Obrador. Is there a fissure in Mexico’s foreign policy where the ambassador does not obey the presidential speech? No. What he practices is a two-headed foreign policy.
Mexico says one thing inside the country and does another outside it. But it does not report it and operates outside Mexico with great secrecy. A secrecy that hides its deceit.
There is total secrecy about the presence of Cubans in the national territory. It does not report on the arrival of supposed Cuban doctors nor what their real role is inside and outside our country’s health system. But international reports inform of clandestine arrivals of Cuban contingents that would probably be security and intelligence agents in charge of training elements of the Mexican armed forces in the control of anti-government demonstrations and how to infiltrate organizations opposing the government as they have done in Venezuela, Nicaragua and some Caribbean countries. The information on these movements comes from international sources and Guacamayas Leaks but never from official reports from the Mexican government.
The same is true of Mexico’s negotiations and meetings with its CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC partners. If it were not for the information emanating from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, no one in Mexico would know about the multiple meetings held in California last week between the Undersecretary of Commerce Alejandro Encinas and his counterparts from Canada and the United States. For Mexico, they are secret meetings with unconfessable agreements since they are not reported to the public. For Canada and the United States, they are private meetings but not secret. And therefore, the agreements are announced in their press releases.
In Mexico, silence and secrecy reign. Accompanied, surely, by a shameful stench, as if the negotiations had unconfessable contents and scope. There were three meetings last week, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, between the three countries seeking agreements on the correct application of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC on conflictive matters: energy, corn imports, biomedical development, and the agreement reached on the cadastre of strategic minerals and natural resources in each of the three countries, including lithium, to share their exploitation.
Nothing is known in Mexico about these negotiations or their agreements or disagreements.
And even less is known about the bombshell news: that Mexico is part of the new Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which was announced this Friday, January 27, in Washington, D.C., and which was agreed upon at the Summit of the Americas held last year in Los Angeles, California. By the way, a meeting that the Mexican President boycotted. However, today Mexico appears as one of the “bottom signatories” of the Pact, despite its rebellion before the Summit promoted by President Biden and its refusal to attend because the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were not invited.
The Pact is also signed by Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. The Pact promotes free and open markets to induce more significant growth in the region and a more equitable distribution of the well-being of the countries involved. It upholds the rule of law, respect for autonomous government bodies, transparency, and accountability. It also promotes democracy in the Americas and seeks to foster productive chains to take advantage of new global economic conditions, such as relocating industries (nearshoring). In addition, it will promote clean energies, seeking to respect the agreements of international organizations in the fight against climate change.
The central idea of the Pact is to promote democracy and prosperity of the participating nations.
The Pact is an excellent, progressive idea, and it is a good thing that Mexico is part of it. It is a pity that Mexico is part of it without giving notice to the country, not even to the Senate of the Republic, and practically attends as a shameful participant. Hypocrisy in the management of our foreign policy damages Mexico’s image. It makes it be perceived as an unreliable partner because it has a double discourse, one inwardly and the other for the consumption of the rest of the world.
Given all of the above, when Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of State, tells in his recently published book that he reached an agreement with Ebrard on the acceptance, on behalf of our country, of being the third country in migratory matters, but asking that it be a secret agreement. Most likely, Pompeo is telling the truth, and Marcelo is lying when he denies it. Why? Because that is the method López Obrador uses in foreign policy: he lies inside and outside the country. And Marcelo, to please the Great Elector, humiliates himself before the United States to make himself look good to his employer. Mexico’s foreign policy is full of lies, deceit, and shadows.
And that’s how Mexico is becoming before the world: untrustworthy, filibustering, and with a damaged reputation. And dragged in the mud by the revelations of a certain Pompeo.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: