An international front that the Government had already considered closed was unexpectedly reopened this Wednesday. The president of Mexico, Andrés López Obrador proposed “pausing” relations with Spain, which, he said, “is going to be convenient for us Mexicans and Spaniards.” “Let’s give ourselves some time” and that they resume, he came to propose, when he is no longer in the presidency. “The relationship is not good,” he maintained, and “I would like it until it took us until it was normalized.”
A reflection that López Obrador made, following a series of Previous criticism of Spanish companies, which it assimilated with US companies. According to him “those who used to be the owners of Mexico.” “He was a conspiracy”, an economic and political promiscuity at the top of the governments “that has lasted” three six-year terms “.” They looted us “, he defended, referring to Spain.
His diatribe caused great astonishment in the Spanish Executive, which in no case expected this outburst. On the contrary, the institutional crisis sponsored by López Obrador, with the harassment of companies such as Iberdrola, OHL and Repsol, and with the letter that he sent to the King in March 2019 demanding a public apology for the conquest, he began to redirect himself. Initially, the Foreign Ministry chose not to make a statement so as not to “add more gasoline.” But Jose Manuel Albareswho was in Lyon, ended up making a statement in which he showed the “surprise” of the Government at López Obrador’s words, although he also tried to reduce its scope.
The minister defended that they had been made in an “informal context”, to questions from a journalist and do not imply an “official position”. In any case, his department was trying to verify what they meant. “Beyond sudden verbal statements or punctual words,” he added, “The relationship between Spain and Mexico is strategic”. “The government has done nothing to justify these demonstrations,” she reiterated. “Far from a pause, what exists is an increase in business relations.”
Despite the attempts to minimize this matter, Albares did warn that “the Government will defend the interests of Spain in any circumstance and in any country.” And he reminded López Obrador that this new position contradicted his latest statements and those of his Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrardwho personally thanked Albares through social networks, “his good offices and sympathy for Mexico.”
I thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain for his good offices and sympathy for Mexico. Thanks @jmalbares!!! pic.twitter.com/89rraJXD66
– Marcelo Ebrard C. (@m_ebrard) January 28, 2022
This verbal skid of the Mexican president occurs just when the Executive thought that he had managed to overcome the diplomatic tension of these last three years, after the definitive granting of the placet to the new Mexican ambassador in our country, Quirino Ordaz, after months of waiting, on January 28. López Obrador himself took it for granted in the middle of that month that his proposal for a new ambassador would be accepted and pointed out that relations with our country were “good.”
“Relationships will be strengthened”
As a reinforcement of what seemed to be the opening of a new stage, the Foreign Minister recently said in the Ibero-American Affairs Committee of the Senate that “there is interest in opening a new page” and that “in the coming months relations will be strengthened”. It is “a strategic partner for Spain to which we are united by a rich agenda of shared interests and deep ties,” she stressed.
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The surprise about López Obrador’s reaction is even greater because there was no reason for him to address the state of relations with Spain. He is about to meet this Wednesday with the special envoy of the Government of Joe Biden on climate change, John Kerry, a question about some assessments of the United States ambassador in Mexico, Ken Salazar, against López Obrador’s electrical reform, unleashed the storm on Spain. Salazar assured that he “promotes dirty, obsolete and expensive technologies.”
The Mexican president’s response to the journalist, in his usual morning press conference, was that they want “clean energy to do dirty business.” Here, “It is no longer allowed to steal, to steal from another party”. “Corruption is not allowed.” “They see us as if we were a colony,” he said of the United States and its companies, whom he also referred to as “the owners of Mexico.” This was just what allowed him to connect with the situation of Spanish companies and with the diplomatic relationship with Spain.