Taken from UNIVISION
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced on Tuesday that the Mexican government’s relations with the embassies of the United States and Canada were “on hold” following criticism from officials from both countries of the judicial reform proposed by the president.
Last Thursday, the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said that the government proposal, which, among other things, implies that judges be elected by popular vote, would pose a “risk” to Mexican democracy and could jeopardize trade relations with the United States. Canada, for its part, expressed similar concerns. The constitutional reform initiative has been generating tension in Mexico for months because its critics believe that it could compromise judicial independence by leaving the appointment of judges to a question of popularity. This month, voices against it increased, both from academics and economic analysis entities and from judges and workers in the federal courts, who last week began a work stoppage and staged various protests.
¿What does it mean that diplomatic relations are “on hold”?
The term “on hold” is not a formal diplomatic concept and its consequences are unclear, although the president has used it on other occasions with other countries.
Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign minister, said on social media that relations with “friends and neighbors in North America are a priority and fundamental, and on a daily basis, remain fluid and normal.”
López Obrador said that the government will not ask Salazar to leave the country because he considered that those comments originated from the State Department, but he asked for a rectification.
“How are we going to allow him to think that what we are doing is wrong?” questioned López Obrador, who clarified that this is not a “pause” in the relationship with Joe Biden’s government. “Hopefully, there will be, on their part, a ratification that they will be respectful of Mexico’s independence, of the sovereignty of our country. As long as this does not happen, and they continue with this policy, there is a pause,” he added, insisting that this was with the embassies and not with their governments.
“Pausing means that we are going to take our time,” AMLO said.
This is not the first time that López Obrador has put foreign relations “on hold.” In 2022, the Mexican president used the same expression and put relations with Spain “on hold” when he accused Spanish energy companies of treating Mexico as a “land of conquest” because they took advantage of advantageous investment conditions during previous governments that his administration limited.
On that occasion, bilateral relations continued, albeit with a more tense tone because, in addition, there had already been tension in 2019, when López Obrador asked the King of Spain to apologize for the conquest, something the monarch did not do.
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