Last week, the Mexican government threatened the United States government with a series of commercial reprisals. If the United States subsidizes electric cars produced there, as a reform still under discussion seeks, Mexico would impose tariffs on American products. “We would have to do or propose something very important and strategic for those products (…) where it also hurts the other way (…) for the consequences to be felt,” declared the secretary of economy Tatiana Clouthier.
The Mexican government did not feel compelled to reaffirm its recognition of US sovereignty. He did not consider that he had to wait for the initiative to finish being discussed in the US Congress, to avoid meddling in the neighbor’s political agenda. Nor did it choose to start using official channels, such as calling the United States government for consultations under article 31.2 (b) of the T-MEC to explain why it considers that its initiative does not violate the commercial commitments that they have acquired with our country. Mexico went straight to the most aggressive.
All this contrasts with the harsh interpretation of the Juarista maxims that our president prescribes to other countries. Before going to Washington, President López Obrador speculated that President Biden would not tell him anything about the electricity reform that the Mexican government is promoting (and legislators from both parties consider that it violates the T-MEC) because “he is very respectful of our sovereignty”. And then he finished: “if he tells me something, I’ll tell him that they don’t want to stop stealing.”
It remains to be seen if Biden will demand that López Obrador respect his “automotive sovereignty.” Or if you answer Secretary Clouthier that electricity subsidies are because those who use fossil technologies “do not want to stop polluting.”
But, until now, the United States government seems to have submitted to the discursive siege that the Mexican government has imposed on it. In response to an express question from the Mexican correspondent José Díaz-Briseño, the spokesman for the United States Department of State explained, very carefully, that “(they made) our Mexican counterparts know about our concerns (in the sense that) promoting the using more expensive technologies over cheaper technologies will make it more difficult to achieve the climate goals that should be shared priorities between our two countries ”. As if what he had said had been almost interventionist, he felt forced to clarify immediately: “The fact is, of course, that Mexico is a sovereign country, it is going to make sovereign decisions about its energy sector, but we continue to advocate for processes of open and transparent procurement. We trust that Mexico will comply with its international commitments in this regard ”. USTR, the US agency charged with implementing the T-MEC, has flat-out said nothing publicly in recent months.
If this is a new regional order, in which Mexico publicly accuses and threatens while the United States limits itself to expressing respectful concerns, preferably privately, López Obrador will undoubtedly have made history. But this looks like a bubble. In addition to the legal actions that US companies could take to defend their interests under investor-state mechanisms, a broad bipartisan group of US legislators has been forming who argue that Mexico is systematically violating the T-MEC on energy. As much as the Biden Administration wants to avoid energy discussions with Mexico, can it resist a domestic political pressure that would increase exponentially if Mexico passes its electricity reform?
Hopefully we don’t get to that point – serious, per se. Now, with the precedents of non-consultation retaliation our government is building, it looks much worse.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx