Mexico: Playing Hardball with the United States

The President thus believes in isolating Mexico politically and economically as much as possible for two reasons. 

• First, on the economic side, he believes Mexico’s poverty, corruption and inequality all stem from the liberalization of the economy that took place during the 1980s. Whether this premise is right or wrong, he attributes these ills to the reforms carried out after the government went virtually bankrupt in 1982.
   
• Second, he has been backtracking on democratic reforms, concentrating power and eliminating or neutralizing the institutional structure built over the past few decades as counterweights to the presidential power, and he does not want to be judged by outsiders on these actions. 

López Obrador has thus strived to limit contact with the US government and returned to Mexico’s old nature: rhetorically attacking the United States under the assumption that this strengthens his domestic popularity. However, AMLO is also a political realist, he understands the limits of what he can do, and was instrumental in facilitating the ratification of the USMCA trade agreement (the United States, Mexico, and Canada updated NAFTA to create the new USMCA in July 2020). 

It is with this context in mind that the López Obrador administration’s contradictory stance towards Ukraine should be viewed, with conflicting domestic forces at play: those that want to be part of the international community and those that would rather retreat. Above all, it is an attempt to show independence vis-à-vis the great power of the North, an old way of playing hardball on relatively irrelevant issues with the US.

What is the impact - if any - of this war on domestic politics? Is there a consensus on this issue?

Protective of its national sovereignty (with an eye permanently glued to the North) and having operated mainly within the framework of a one-party system, to which the current administration is aiming to return, Mexican traditional foreign policy has always been based on a non-intervention strategy. 

The best indicator of Mexicans’ priorities and preferences is emigration. Despite the volume of Mexican migration dropping in the last decade (largely as a result of changes in the demographic pyramid) it has recently picked up. This is fuelled by economic hardships in Mexico and by opportunities provided by the US economy. 

Can the war affect the US-Mexico relationship?

Despite a common border and more than two decades of partnership, the US-Mexico relationship is arguably one of the most complex in the world. Both countries are divided by legacies of history and very contrasting cultures. The levels of development on each side also deserves a mention. A stark asymmetry of power will always persist between both countries. Nevertheless, Mexico’s influence on the US should not be overlooked. The potential lack of cooperation of a Mexican government on issues that are politically relevant to the United States cannot be minimized. Hence, both nations understand that they are joined at the hip and strive to control the level of conflictuality.

Almost forty years ago, both nations agreed to manage the bilateral relationship based on two principles. The first is compartmentalization of issues: never mix issues that plague the relationship (such as migration, drugs, exports, imports, investment, etc.) so as not to politicize problems and be able to effectively address them. The second, is that neither government should surprise the other in public or, as diplomats now say, no daylight should come about so that issues can be managed and both can anticipate changes in direction. These two principles set the foundation for an ever-growing economic and peaceful relationship that catered to both nations’ interests. Even though policy inaction on various fronts is preventing Mexico from reaching US levels of development, both countries never failed to address issues resulting from the complexity of their vicinity. Recently, for example, President López Obrador surprised President Biden by publicly conditioning his attendance to the Summit in The Americas to the presence of the presidents of Cuba and Venezuela. Most telling, President López Obrador is the first president since that agreement was reached in the 1980s who shares neither the vision of closer ties, nor the need to address common problems in tandem. 

The critical question for Mexico and, inexorably, for the bilateral relationship, is whether AMLO’s current vision is the beginning of a new era, or rather an exception to the ever-greater closeness that has characterized the past few decades. This issue will be of paramount importance in the 2024 Mexican presidential election. The 2024 US presidential election will also prove to be pivotal, for a return to a Trump administration could decisively change the course for the bilateral relationship. 

Copyright: PEDRO PARDO / AFP