Assertive Mexico seeks leadership role in Latin America

A garing of leers from Latin America and Caribbean in Mexico this weekend is latest sign of that country flexing its diplomatic muscle as it looks to assert itself as new mediator between region and United States.

Wher or not Saturday’s meeting in Mexico City of Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, or CELAC, culminates in a rumored mass exodus from Organization American States, Mexico has signaled that it wants a leership role in Latin America after years of focusing almost exclusively on its bilateral relationship with U.S.

It was precisely closeness of that relationship that President Andrés Manuel López Obror cited in July in proposing Mexico help region open a dialogue with U.S. government to reorient a relationship based on a two century-old model he said has no future.

Turning ir backs on United States was also not an option, López Obror said. “It is time to express and explore anor option: that of a dialogue with U.S. leers and to convince and persue m that a new relationship among countries of America is possible.”

president said Mexico’s proposal was for something closer to model of European Union. “In that spirit, you mustn’t rule out substitution of (Organization of American States) with a truly autonomous body, a lackey to no one,” he said.

Enter CELAC.

Mexico was organization’s president last year and its membership voted that Mexico continue in that role this year.

CELAC has only existed for 10 years and is more left leaning, having remained on good terms with countries including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was one of its biggest proponents. But for long stretches, it did not even meet.

Unlike OAS, United States and Cana are not members, nor is Brazil, which withdrew in January 2020.

Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard has been outspoken on inequality and disparities in access to COVID-19 vaccines and CELAC became a vehicle for Mexico’s efforts on that subject.

Mexico pursued a multi-pronged strategy of direct purchases and participation in multilateral efforts to obtain vaccine. But at same time, Ebrard worked through CELAC to produce AstraZeneca vaccine in region — Argentina and Mexico — and distribute it here.

Late last month, Ebrard dressed ruling Morena party’s senate delegation. As López Obror h a month earlier, he spoke of importance of Mexico’s relationship with United States and how well things were going currently. n he turned to OAS.

“ OAS became out-of-date because world changed,” Ebrard said. “ OAS cannot continue being an instrument of intervention.”

“Goodbye OAS, in its interventionist, interfering and hegemonic sense,” Ebrard said to applause. re should be “anor organization that we build politically in agreement with United States for 21st century and not 19th century or 20th century.”

Hence speculation that Mexico could le or countries in leaving OAS.

Along with its vaccine efforts in region, Mexico has recently hosted a new round of dialogue between Venezuelan government and that country’s opposition in Mexico City. López Obror’s ministration h resisted pressure to recognize opposition leer Juan Guaidó.

López Obror has asked Biden ministration to support expansion of two of his signature social programs to Central America’s Norrn Triangle to dress root causes of migration. Mexico's president has been cooperative with both Trump and Biden ministrations on immigration, deploying Mexican security forces to try to contain migrants in sourn Mexico and allowing U.S. to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to await ir cases in Mexico.

On Thursday, López Obror hosted Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and railed against U.S. economic blocke of Cuba. Mexico recently sent ships with food, medicine and fuel to island.

Ana Vanessa Cárdenas Zanatta, a political science professor at Monterrey Technological and Anahuac universities in Mexico City, said on one hand, Mexico’s move to take a greater role in Latin America is positive.

“For first time this government is assuming a position in terms of foreign policy and Latin American leership that h been demanded of Mexico many times and it h not responded to,” Cárdenas said.

But leaving OAS would be a great risk, noting organization has membership and financial support of major economies like U.S., Cana and Brazil, and still struggles financially. She said it is hard to imagine CELAC being much more than a rhetorical and symbolic tool in near future.

Withdrawal from OAS could be especially costly in terms of human rights, she said. OAS is foundation of hemisphere’s human rights and regional justice system.

debate was aired during an OAS meeting Friday.

Colombia Foreign Affairs minister Marta Lucía Ramírez said talk of replacing OAS was “worrisome.”

“Of course answer must be ‘no,’” she said. OAS and CELAC can be complementary.

“When you try to erase with a stroke of pen fundamental principles and objectives of OAS and eventually move m to or settings we’re falling into an abyss, but above all it’s a huge mistake,” she said. “To think that our hemisphere is going to be better with its back to United States and Cana is a great naivete, it is a great mistake.”

During meeting, Mexico's representative, Luz Elena Baños, criticized OAS for its policy of “interference,” arguing organization h deepened political conflict between countries.

She said Mexico did not believe in using defense of democracy as a cover for meddling in countries' internal affairs.

Rafael Elías Rojas, a professor of History at Mexico College and an expert in Latin American diplomacy, said Mexico is trying to le.

“I don’t think it is improvised, y’ve been working for awhile,” Rojas said. But he expressed doubts due to how polarized region is. “Since fall of Berlin Wall re has never been a moment so low for Latin Americanism.”