Ken Salazarthe United States ambassador to Mexico, You must be sorry for the recommendations what made Washington on how to deal with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador because they are the same as They already caused the fall of Juan Gonzálezwho directed the affairs for Latin America in the National Security Council of the White House, whose approach to the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, under the same parameter that Salazar established for López Obrador, failed.
Maduro dismantled the agreement he had to make democratic elections this year and is going after his opponents. Recently, the Supreme Court of Justice, controlled by Maduro, disqualified the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, as a candidate. Although Washington understands that Mexico and Venezuela are two countries with different conditionsthe similarities between López Obrador and Maduro, in terms of using the advances of democracy to rapidly dismantle it by promoting an authoritarian regime, now seem clear.
Until two years ago it was different. Salazar had managed to survive criticism from North American companies of the State Department for not defending American interests and leaning towards Mexicans within the Free trade agreement, and Foggy Bottom's annoyance against his actions. Salazar, very close to the president Joe Biden, had established an easy, comfortable and friendly relationship with López Obrador, arguing that by treating the Mexican president with a soft hand, the Americans could dialogue with him and reach agreements. He was totally wrong.
A strategic mistake in Salazar's design he put in a trap the United States government, which required a good relationship with López Obrador to help Biden contain migration, which had become a political-electoral nightmare many months before starting the presidential campaign. Salazar gave in everything to keep López Obrador happy, who took advantage of the president to get his way in economic, commercial and investment matters, managing to avoid panels within the North American treaty through the threat of opening the immigration door. His defense of López Obrador was so vehement that he was mockingly called “Mexico's ambassador to the State Department.”
Biden was reducing the level of his government's dialogue with López Obrador. The first to be relieved was Kamala Harris, the vice president, with which she went down a step. Then she exhausted his patience. John Kerry, a kind of ambassador at large for Biden, with whom he had several disagreements in the National Palace. In the end they reduced the level of dialogue with Salazar – something unprecedented by turning the messenger into López Obrador's window – and added Elizabeth Randall Sherwood, responsible for Territorial Security in the National Security Council, making it clear that the priority of the bilateral relationship was migration and fentanyl.
As in López Obrador agreed to contain migration and combat fentanyl, Salazar was able to sail towards safe harbor. Things changed as the electoral processes approached. The first to fall was González over the Venezuela issue, and people who know Salazar say that he is nervous that this could be his fate, because the aggravating factors are greater than in the case of Maduro. In Washington they are watching with concern the growing presence of Russian diplomatic personnel, which was detected for the first time by veteran Mexican correspondent Dolia Estévez, whose investigation raised alerts.
This Sunday, in a long report in The Hill, the most read newspaper on Capitol Hill, it was stated that the Russian footprint is disproportionately large compared to Mexico's presence in Moscow, which has sparked Concern over potential Kremlin espionage and cyber activity in the United States, “a valuable intelligence objective”, in the current situation of the electoral process in that nation. “López Obrador, a former PRI activist, has maintained a neutral position on a variety of issues, specifically those involving Russia,” the report noted. “He has refused to take sides in the invasion of Ukraine and has not yet condemned the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.”
Salazar does not seem to have reported with opportunity and context on the growing Russian penetration in Mexico, which is becoming a relevant issue in Washington due to the position of the virtual Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, on Russia. Trump has said that he can speak directly with Vladimir Putin, recently re-elected for a fifth presidential term, and although López Obrador has not publicly said anything similar, his actions – such as inviting one of the battalions that invaded Ukraine to parade on September 16 -, his inclination towards Moscow has been evident.
Nor does Salazar seem to have informed Washington – perhaps because it went unnoticed – of the support that 2020 presidential elections Morena brigades in the United States gave Trump. Currently, faced with the possibility that Trump will defeat Biden in November, the ambassador has begun to act, in his own way. A few days ago he spoke with prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero to pass on information from his government that Trump was planning to start his presidential campaign – after he is nominated at the Republican Convention that will take place in mid-July – with a very harsh speech. against Mexico and with new threats to impose tariffs, if the government did not stop migration and seal its northern border.
Salazar's relationship with the president got out of hand, for dismissing the profile of his country's intelligence services on López Obrador, and ignoring the information that valued him. The president did not deceive the ambassador. If Salazar thought he could find spaces for them to work together, with the gentle hand of the White House and his eyes closed to the political abuses he committed in exchange for immigration collaboration, today he shows signs of having been wrong, because the costs for his government They would be higher than those that caused González's fall.
#ambassador39s #mistakes