The end of the honeymoon

Many analysts and diplomats have commented over the past year that Presidents Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador entered into a sort of tacit and discreet Faustian pact to conduct relations between Mexico and the United States. Fausian Covenant, not with the devil, but with each other. As we have commented here and many others commented earlier and better, Biden agreed not to question López Obrador's internal procedures, either on macroeconomic policy, on energy or institutional reforms or on relations with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and López Obrador agreed to do the dirty work of the United States on Mexico's southern and northern border and prevent undocumented migrants from entering the United States. Likewise, many of us said that this Faustian pact, intelligent, skilful and profitable for both leaders, probably had days counted from the beginning, since it was not a sustainable position for either of the two in the medium term.

It seems that the Fausian pact has indeed come to an end. The signal was the statement of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm during her visit to Mexico, reporting on the content of her talks with López Obrador and other senior Mexican officials. In fact, this visit and that statement also coincide with the publication-even unofficial-of the numbers of arrests of migrants on the border between Mexico and the United States by US authorities in December.

As for the former, unlike other visits by Trump or Biden government officials to Mexico or meetings of Mexicans with them in the United States, this time Washington did not allow López Obrador to give the only version of the talks. When the Mexican tried to say that they had been cordial and with respect and kindness, the US Embassy and the Energy Secretariat immediately released a press release saying that yes, the talks were indeed cordial and that they loved each other and loved each other and kissed each other and whatever they wanted, but that the United States had shared to all Mexican officials their real concerns about energy reform and the policies of the 4T government in general. So far, that kind of clarification had not happened. The reason was very simple: Biden and his team did not want to irritate or disturb López Obrador, leading him to desist from deploying nearly 30,000 troops throughout the national territory to beat, torture, deport and mistreat Central American, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Cuban, Ecuadorian and Haitian migrants in general.

Do I have any car friends who know how to change an alternator?

— slightly less pessimistic Mon Mar 01 20:52:02 +0000 2021

The problem is that just as it has happened since 2014-that is, the Peña Nieto regime-despite all the promises and sincere willingness of two Mexican presidents to do their best to please three US presidents regarding the closure of the borders, Mexico simply cannot contain migratory flows for too long. The figures for December are frightening: 177,000 arrests, that is, more than in November and more than any other month of December for decades. For the calendar year 2021, these are more than 1.9 million arrests, the highest number since 2000 when he was still President of the United States Bill Clinton, and of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo.

If Mexico can no longer, despite all its best will, fulfill Biden, it can no longer fulfill López Obrador either. Letters from several U.S. senators-Republicans and Democrats, young and older, from the coast and the center of the country-on energy issues, but also on a series of breaches-according to them-of TMEC provisions have made Biden's task increasingly difficult. You just can't turn a blind eye as easily as you used to. Not that I didn't want to do it: with the troubles in Ukraine, with the Senate and Congress, with China and Taiwan, and with many others accumulating, the last thing Biden wants is to fight López Obrador. But the senators of his own party, not to mention those of the Republican party, do not have to give him any benefit as far as the relationship with Mexico is concerned. And that is why the public letters sent to Biden or his closest collaborators are becoming more explicit and punctual.

Are we on the eve of a declaratory war between Mexico and the United States? Of course not. Will there continue to be visits and cordial meetings? Of course it is. Will the issues be dealt with with institutional causes as they should be dealt with? Of course I am. But what López Obrador can no longer take for granted is that he dominates the narrative of what is happening and that the complaints, criticisms, doubts, concerns and, in his case, the pressures of the United States cease to be entirely private and from time to time become public. This is a very important change that will not make the government work easier for López Obrador at all. Oh, that's good.

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