Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
National scenarios are highly unstable because political narratives change rapidly. One example is Ambassador Salazar’s change of narrative with President Lopez Obrador. He abruptly changed the diplomatic game between the two countries by commenting on the need to prioritize the fight against crime, terrorism, and violence, dismissing problems around the USMCA negotiation. He didn’t reduce the problem; he made it more prominent.
It is a change of narrative on the part of the United States because it puts drug trafficking, its violence, and terrorism at the heart and center of the bilateral relationship. It seemed to say, “forget about the USMCA and those trifles…focus on violence and terrorism”. President López Obrador was disconcerted by this turn of events and could not manage to say more than his trite and empty phrases such as “evil is not confronted with evil, but with good” or “fire is not fought with more fire” to finish off with “we are different” and “we do not go around putting alerts on Mexican travelers to the United States”. The presidential bewilderment can be measured and felt by his confusing defensive response to the ambassador’s allegation.
How is this a change of narrative? In that, AMLO assumed he was holding the cards in the USMCA negotiations, with the naïve history expressed by Tatiana Clouthier that Mexico cannot be proven wrong about violations of the USMCA because it has not reformed the Constitution. Nor will it do so, by the way.
With that Mexican argument that “I didn’t do anything,” the United States seems determined to up the ante. “Terrorist violence in Mexico,” says Ambassador Salazar, “discourages the arrival of new investments and encourages already installed capital to go to other countries.” Therefore, the discussion is not only about the USMCA in terms of energy investments but about all current and potential investments that do not arrive due to legal uncertainty and violence in any sector of the economy.
Apart from his response in Tijuana directly to Ambassador Salazar and Washington about violence and terrorism, AMLO added an additional element. In order not to talk about terrorism, which in the United States receives a special legal consideration that allows for different actions than those traditionally recognized by diplomacy, the President referred to “propagandistic actions of the illegal gangs” operating in that part of the country.
He was obviously referring to the various actions by organized crime, which, for different reasons, exploded in several states of the Republic. Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Chihuahua, Baja California, Colima and, to a lesser degree, in Zacatecas, Veracruz and Sonora. Not to mention the habitual violence in Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Tabasco.
Behind the ambassador’s comment lies a threat. The possibility of declaring Mexico a country officially semi-controlled by drug trafficking and, therefore, a terrorist threat to the United States may achieve something that Lopez Obrador should not wish for: Mexico’s economic debacle, currency devaluation, and rampant unemployment. Ah, but with national sovereignty intact, like virginity. It is useless.
In this context of situations, López Obrador participated virtually in the CELAC meeting held last Friday under the presidency of Argentina. There he launched a diatribe against the interventionism with pretensions of dominance over Latin America by the United States and Canada. He called on the countries of the region to organize themselves and, taking advantage of Brazil’s absence, he wanted, once again, to place Mexico as the region’s leader (Central America, the Caribbean, and South America). Like his previous proposal that all the region’s countries should leave the OAS, a total failure, this call also fell on deaf ears. Why?
No government in Latin America believes what López Obrador says. There have been too many examples of his bending in international politics for everyone to distrust him. The most recent example was his “boycott” of the Summit of the Americas, a Biden-sponsored meeting. He did not attend the meeting but, as a reward, received a golden visit to the White House. All the leaders took the boycott and the rhetoric that accompanied it for what it was: a self-serving maneuver to ride on a supposed Latin American leadership, to gain some leverage in his negotiation with Washington.
Therefore, López Obrador’s call in CELAC against Washington and Ottawa fell into a void. López Obrador’s double-faced policy has squandered Mexico’s strength and prestige before the world and Latin America. No country believes in Lopez Obrador’s sincerity, and all seek to uncover the attempted manipulation. Mexico’s word is taken for what it is: unreliable as a partner, treacherous as a policy.
Mexico goes alone in its negotiations with the United States and Canada, without Latin American solidarity. The only ones who will speak in favor of López Obrador will be Evo Morales and possibly the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. What a foreign policy scam!
AMLO’s displeasure against Salazar is because the ambassador snatched the word from him and forced him to answer. He changed the President’s narrative. Nothing angers him more than that. And Mexico is alone before its partners because Latin America doubts Mexico’s sincerity.
The ambassador’s narrative of broadening the discussion between Mexico and the United States on violence is also uncomfortable for López Obrador because it opens another flank, not only that of investors. It is the military flank. There is already ” grave” discontent among the officers about the policy towards criminality and the deterioration of the public reputation that it negatively reflects on the Armed Forces. And it creates a division between the military in the service of the nation and the Constitution and those dedicated to business and personal enrichment.
The President’s anger with the ambassador is that the narrative change caught him with his fingers in the door. And he cannot find a way to extract himself from his swamp, in which he is inexorably sinking.
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