The latest clash between the United States and Mexico has had an unexpected protagonist. Ken Salazar, the friendly and smiling face of American diplomacy, left behind the conciliatory and cautious tone that has characterized his relationship with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and made evident Washington’s discomfort with the Mexican president’s project to reform the Judicial Branch, the issue that is attracting all attention in the next Congress session, which begins on September 1. Salazar launched three darts against the election of judges, magistrates and ministers of the Supreme Court by direct vote: he said it was “a risk to democracy”, a “threat” to the commercial relationship between both countries and a gateway for drug trafficking to influence the legal system.
“The direct and political election of judges, in my view, will not resolve this judicial corruption nor will it strengthen the judiciary,” said Salazar, dressed in his usual cowboy hat, an accessory he has worn since he grew up on a ranch in Colorado out of habit and as protection from the sun, according to him. But it was not the relaxed atmosphere of other press conferences at the official residence. At one in the afternoon, the ambassador came down the steps, took off his mask and stood in front of the microphones with a much more serious attitude than on other occasions. The staff of the United States Embassy announced that the only topic to be discussed was judicial reform and broadcast the message live on social media, other different points of an unusual conference. Almost no one, however, anticipated such a forceful position.
Just a week ago, Salazar had highlighted several positive aspects of the reform, such as setting deadlines for the resolution of cases in the courts, reducing the number of justices in the Supreme Court and strengthening the disciplinary body of the Judicial Branch. At that conference, the ambassador had already hinted that he was not convinced of the direct vote election with minimum requirements to run for office, stating that “when judges go out to campaign, raise money and be politicians” it is not a “good model.” He had also spoken of the need for a “strong and independent” judiciary and that investors needed “trust.” But the tone was completely different. “We are not in a position to tell the Government of Mexico, the people, the Congress, the senators, the Chamber of Deputies, what they should do,” he declared on August 16. The arguments, however, went unnoticed or did not have the same impact, to say the least.
Three months ago, when Morena’s landslide victory in last June’s elections made the markets nervous, Salazar came out to give a message to calm the mood and moderate the signs of concern coming from the United States. “It is Mexico’s decision,” he insisted. Just a day earlier, Brian Nichols, undersecretary for the Western Hemisphere at the State Department, had urged the president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, to give legal guarantees to foreign investors. As has been the tenor of the three years he has been ambassador, the State Department was the heavy hand and Salazar was the friendly face, even though he worked for the State Department. The Department criticized the human rights situation in the López Obrador government, the treatment of the press and the attacks on the Supreme Court. The ambassador posed smiling with high officials and governors, put on a baseball uniform and visited the Teotihuacan pyramids.
López Obrador made the same distinction. “He is my friend, a good, sensible man, a friend of President Biden, a very responsible politician,” he declared about Salazar in July 2022. In the president’s words, the “little State Department” was, on the other hand, “interventionist” and produced “nonsense” like the annual Human Rights report. It was no secret that the president and the ambassador, barely three months younger, get along well. Those who have dealt with him closely recognize the diplomat’s good-natured character, his cowboy self-confidence, and his understanding of the importance of charisma as a political instrument. “The relationship is extraordinary,” the president said repeatedly. This Friday, after Mexico sent a diplomatic response for the comments, that dividing line was erased. “It’s not Ken, Ken is the spokesperson, it’s the State Department,” said López Obrador, calling his “friend” “arrogant” and “imprudent.”
Salazar arrived in Mexico in September 2021 with the task of repairing the bridges that had fallen during the Donald Trump administration. After four years of attacks and threats from the Republican, it was crucial for the López Obrador administration to convey to Washington the idea that they wanted to be treated as equals and not as subordinates. The ambassador made this a point present in all his statements, including the one in which he tried to heal the wounds: “We have created an unprecedented relationship as partners and equals.” That has been the discourse in joint efforts such as the Bicentennial Understanding, the North American Leaders Summit or after each extradition of a drug lord.
Charisma was not the only change from his predecessor, Christopher Landau. Salazar has had a much more prominent role and quickly realized that having a direct relationship with López Obrador was essential to maintaining dialogue between the two countries and cushioning the recurring turbulence in the bilateral relationship. “He understood that politics here is done in the National Palace and that if something had to be resolved with Mexico, it was done directly with the president,” commented analyst Leonardo Curzio about Salazar in an interview in May. The ambassador’s last visit to the president that made the news was in July.
Despite pressure and criticism from Republicans, Salazar also understood that many of López Obrador’s outbursts – against the DEA, the State Department or the interventionist policy of the United States – were tolerable and for domestic consumption, and that they did not compromise the country’s cooperation on two key issues for Joe Biden: the migration crisis and the fight against drug trafficking. Even after the controversy over the arrest of Ismael The May Zambada and the signs that the Mexican government was losing patience due to the lack of information and not being notified about the arrest, the ambassador stressed that it represented a victory for both countries. “We will continue to collaborate with respect for our sovereignties,” he said when giving Washington’s version of the capture, a phrase he repeated twice in the official statement.
Migration and the war on drugs inevitably pass through Mexico and are at the center of the campaign in the United States, which will elect a new president next November. The Biden administration scored two points with the capture of El Mayo, a major but symbolic blow against drug trafficking, and the reduction of migratory flows to levels not seen since September 2020. But the electoral contest continues to dominate everything.
Salazar, who was Barack Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security and a senator from Colorado, also understands this point. He also knows that López Obrador is a month away from completing his term and that Sheinbaum’s arrival to power is approaching. He is clear that, like any ambassador, his job is to defend the interests of his government and that is what he has done: he pushed for an increase in extraditions, raised his voice in the face of spikes in drug violence and made public his concerns about López Obrador’s electricity reform, to cite a notorious example. All these elements make it difficult to believe that his statements were an act of improvisation and reflect that the ambassador has always felt comfortable in his own ambivalences: he knows how to be the good and bad cop, when to approach or distance himself from the president, when to talk about the Virgin of Guadalupe and when to stir up the political terrain.
Although his relationship with López Obrador has captured the spotlight during his time at the embassy, Salazar is a seasoned politician and fully trusted by President Biden, his boss and former colleague in the Senate and in Obama’s Cabinet. Therefore, the statements go beyond a weekly controversy. They are a warning that the United States, Mexico’s main trading partner, has serious concerns about judicial reform and anticipates “turbulence” in the economic integration of both countries. They are also a sign that the concerns are so great that it was worth putting them on the table publicly, despite López Obrador’s obvious discontent, which was predicted. Despite the asymmetries of the relationship, no Mexican president can explicitly give in to Washington’s pressure on domestic politics.
Once the cards were on the table, what follows is diplomacy. The underlying question is about the health of the channels of dialogue between the two countries, which Salazar always advocated for and which López Obrador always boasted about. “Recently, there have been acts of disrespect for our sovereignty, such as this unfortunate and arrogant statement,” said the Mexican president.[La declaración] “This does not reflect the degree of mutual respect that characterizes the relations between both countries,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in its protest note. “I am fully willing to engage in dialogue,” insisted the American ambassador after the latest exchange of statements. Each statement gives a different version of the state of the bilateral relationship in recent weeks. It remains to be seen whether the recent clashes over the capture of El Mayo or the judicial reform will have a lasting impact or if they will remain as a dispute between “friends.”
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