The clash with Peru, an example of Mexico’s curious diplomacy at the time of López Obrador

Diplomacy with a president who has openly expressed his disinterest in international politics – “the best foreign policy is domestic”, repeats Andrés Manuel López Obrador – and who speaks to the press every day without any type of filter is not an easy task.

The crisis between Mexico and Peru, where the Mexican president has gone far beyond the rest of the countries that consider themselves part of the Latin American left, is the latest example.

He left the regional script and is acting on his own, said Rafael Elías Rojas, a professor at the Colegio de México university’s Center for Historical Studies.

The problem, adds Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican diplomat of an opposition party, is that the tone of the morning presidential conferences marked by little seriousness, jokes and attacks on his detractors has “contaminated” foreign policy in front of a considered international diplomatic corps ” very professional.

So, at times, diplomats or the Farnesina itself did it dialectical juggling to qualify some of the president’s comments without discrediting it.

ambassador expelled

Peru this week expelled the Mexican ambassador in Lima, Pablo Monroy, over comments by López Obrador in which he accused the Peruvian congress of a soft coup against Pedro Castillo who sought to dissolve Parliament, criticized his very respectful law and attacked the new government of Dina Boluarte as a suppressor of protests, words that Lima considered meddling in internal affairs.

Despite the appeal for diplomatic attention, the president maintained the tone of the comments but the foreign ministry chose not to sever relations, according to the president himself.

On Friday, with Monroy already in Mexico and present at the morning conference, the president stressed that it was “a sign of pride that our ambassador is declared persona non grata for having fulfilled the mission of saving lives and affirming the best of our policy foreign the right of asylum”.

history of non-intervention

Since the last century, Mexico has been characterized by a foreign action marked by non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, a position which avoided external control of its national policy and which allowed the country to interact both with the United States as with the Soviet Union, Cuba or China, while he defended the self-determination of peoples and sovereignty in Latin America.

The undoubted tradition of asylum meant that those fleeing civil wars, armed conflicts or military dictatorships sought refuge in Mexico, and diplomatic ruptures were rare with the Germany of the Third Reich, with Franco’s Spain, after the victory of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua or with the coup d’état of Augusto Pinochet in Chile because the so-called doctrine of state (1930) was generally imposed, which escapes the process of government recognition. This has not prevented times of certain freezing with some countries.

López Obrador has appealed to this principle in order not to comment on the new Peruvian leader but, above all, he insists that he will defend asylum and non-intervention, although the latter concept is always subjective.

Monroy insisted on Friday that he had acted in accordance with Mexican, Peruvian and international law, betting on dialogue and expressing legitimate concerns” in a respectful manner because, as he indicated, there are doubts as to whether the rules were followed during the detention of Castillo, which had presidential jurisdiction.

Castillo’s wife, Lilia Paredes, who is being born under investigation in her country for corruption issuesand her two youngest children have been in Mexico since Wednesday, with broad-based political asylum, Monroy said, that could protect her from possible prosecution in her country.

Leadership in the region

Since the beginning of the administration in December 2018, Mexico has sought to have Latin American leadership and, at the same time, strengthen its strategic and not without tensions relationship with its neighbor to the north.

The result, in the words of Rafael Elías Rojas, is a foreign policy framed in two extremes: pure pragmatism with the United States and Canada, and a relationship with Latin America based on ideological sympathies which, paradoxically, leads to greater activism in some Andean countries and more condescension and passivity in places like Nicaragua or El Salvador where authoritarianism advances in various ways.

According to the historian, this is due to the fact that López Obrador wanted to assume the leadership that the Bolivarian countries had precisely to counter their push for North American integration.

The relationship with the United States

Indeed his speech towards the United States, while always reiterating good relations, is ideologically much more combative with current President Joe Biden than with his predecessor, Donald Trump, although the Republican has been very harsh in his pejorative statements about Mexicans.

The current tension with Peru, where López Obrador accuses the US of meddling, is the latest example avoid condemning serious human rights violations by the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro or Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega.

He also made Cuba the Mexican independence guest of honor in the aftermath of massive protests that resulted in nearly 400 people being sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

Besides, López Obrador was reluctant to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine Faced with a more energetic Foreign Ministry, he reiterated his offer of asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks accused by the United States of espionage, or chose to boycott the hemispheric summit held this year in Los Angeles because Biden did not invite Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

With Spain, López Obrador has also set a different pace for relations than the rest of the region by suspending relations, an undiplomatic concept, because Madrid has refused to apologize for the takeover. However, strong economic, historical and cultural ties remain.

The declaration of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia on Pedro Castillo

In PeruMexico joined Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia in a statement of support for Castillobut the Mexican leader was his most passionate defender, comparing his offer of asylum to that made to Evo Morales, even though the Bolivian did not seek to dissolve Parliament and distanced himself from the positions of other allies such as the president elected of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva or the Chilean Gabriel Boric.

Certain bets by Mexico in favor of more development policies, for example for the containment of migration, have been well received in various sectors, but the former diplomat Guajardo assures that the leadership that the government claims to have does not translate into support concrete.

He cites what happened in the election of the new president of the Inter-American Development Bank, where the Mexican candidacy was largely defeated by the candidate of Brazil, a country whose president is already leaving.

López Obrador, however, does not give up. He said Thursday that in his meeting with Biden he will ask him to open up North American free trade to all of America, a program for the poor in the region and that there will be no more interference because although the United States talks about freedom and democracy it does the opposite .

From Washington, silence. Rojas insists it’s due to pragmatism. Guajardo believes that out of patience because the dependency ratios between the two neighbors are too great. They don’t want to be distracted by President Mexico’s nonsense and ignore him.

Source: AP

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