The agenda of North American leaders has changed very little since the last time the presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joe Biden, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeauthey met in Washington in November 2021, strengthen competitiveness in the region, climate changea regulated migrationbetter Health and strengthening of security. What has changed is the contentious attitude of Lopez Obrador and the growing separation of strategic vision with its counterparts. This is unlikely to change, despite the good wishes that, like two years ago, they express themselves in joint communiqués.
The ideas that Biden and Trudeau bring to the trilateral discussion table this Tuesday will clash with the positions of López Obrador, many of them raised in the context of a world that existed more than three decades ago, which will provoke for Mexican interests, a waste of the opportunity offered by this summit. Lopez Obrador does not think in terms americanseven though Mexico is grafted onto the productive apparatus of USA, and feels like a spokesperson for Latin America, where it came off in the early 90s.
Lopez Obrador will bring to the table the proposal that the agreement North American become Pan-Americanwhich could be the first step to build an entity similar to what the European Union is. It is not in the interest of your peers. Not including treaty with Mexico and Canada, United States has only 10 trade agreements with Latin Americawhile Canada, excluding the North American, has six. In both cases, the commercial exchanges of these two nations with Latin AmericaThey are almost negligible.
López Obrador’s idea is for Biden to imitate President John F. Kennedy and cast its equivalent to the Alliance for Progress, devised in 1961 to contain the influence of Cuba in the region that, in terms economic and of developingwas a failure. The Mexican president, who has an idyllic and limited vision of what that plan was, thinks – and will say so – that on the road to the unification of the economies, Biden and Trudeau support it so that the continent’s development model is based on the theory of import substitution, but if the first thing was a UtopiaThis is a without sense. Since the late 1960s, the development of nations has shifted from import substitution to industrialization.
This strategic turn in the economies of the world led parallel to the free market, that on the continent has been threatened by the protectionism of USAregardless of whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican. López Obrador does not like the free market, because it reduces it to an aberration of governments “neoliberals” -it would be more accurate to call them technocrats-, although one of its strategic expressions would be the agreement American commercial.
Lopez Obrador He is in favor of it, and has stated so, but he is also reluctant to conform to the legal rules that this implies. Commercial disputes with his partners have a lot to do with that position. Of the 17 disputes in the agreement North American, USA has filed nine against Mexico and two against Canada. Most notable are the complaints of United States and Canada against Mexico for their energy policies, that of USA against Mexico because of its restrictions on transgenic corn -where Washington is considering filing a dispute-, and those of Mexico Y Canada against USA for his interpretation of the rules of origin in the automotive industrywhere there is already a ruling against Washingtonwhich will be appealed this week.
The energy issue is at an impasse. In mid-December the consultation period for mediation ended, without reaching it, but United States and Canada, For unknown reasons, they did not request the installation of a panel to settle the controversy, which, according to the experts, would win it. It would seem that they would have waited for today’s summit, to discuss it directly with Lopez Obradoras anticipated trudeau Friday in an interview with Reuters. “Both the president Biden like me we are going to be quite clear with the president Lopez Obrador that (this) needs to be understood as a way to help the development of mMexico, to attract investment from companies in Canada Y USA”, stated.
So far, they have run head-on against the wall of Lopez Obrador, whose government has shown no sign of backing down at all. The Mexican president’s energy policies are contrary to climate changea topic that is emphasized by its trading partners and that will be on the discussion agenda.
In the same way, they are key to the future of supply chains, which will also be in the bilateral talks Y trilateralto guarantee the nearshoringthe offshoring process to move business operations to a nearby country, accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. coronavirus. The relocation of companies in China has benefited Mexicowhere the American priority is in the production of electric vehicles, which clashes, however, with the Mexican energy policy.
If the positions are maintained, today there will be a dialogue of the deaf, and the commitments that will be announced tonight, negotiated by the foreign ministers, Melanie Joly from Canada, Antony Blinken from the United States, and Marcelo Ebrard from Mexicothey will hardly be respected by Lopez Obrador, as has happened in the past, because of a vision radically opposed to the one held by Biden and Trudeau.
Precisely, not on issues of the bilateral relationship, but on how they see the world and what goes through their heads they spoke Lopez Obrador and Biden during the journey of Felipe Angeles airport to the hotel where the guest is staying on Sunday night, reported Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the White Houseduring a briefing. “I think it was very clear to both of them.” added. What was she referring to? We’ll see today.
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