Mexico 'Pauses' Embassy Relations With U.S., Canada After Ambassadors Criticize Judicial Reform Supported By Mexico’s President

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gestures while speaking during his daily early morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on August 23, 2024.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico announced on Tuesday that his country will halt official contacts with U.S. and Canadian embassies, after their representatives had expressed disapproval of a judicial reform proposal that the Mexican president supports.

“There is a pause,” Lopez Obrador said in a press conference, referencing the relationship between the United States and Canada.

The president is advocating for a reform that would let Mexican citizens choose judges, including the justices of the Supreme Court. The plan was endorsed late on Monday by a committee in the lower chamber of the Mexican Congress, clearing the way for its approval upon the inauguration of the newly elected Congress in September.

Critics say that the reform will stifle judges’ careers, tilt power in favor of the executive branch, and increase the vulnerability of the courts to criminal influence. Meanwhile, proponents claim that the reform will “strengthen democracy” and help restore a system that they claim does not serve the public interest.

Last week, U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar called the proposed reform a “major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy” and issued a warning about possible consequences for commercial relations between the two countries.

Graeme Clark, Canada’s ambassador to Mexico, similarly issued a warning over investment worries.

Salazar shared a formal message from the embassy, dated August 23^rd, later on Tuesday, in response to Lopez Obrador’s remarks.

“The United States supports the concept of judicial reform in Mexico, but we have significant concerns that the popular election of judges would neither address judicial corruption nor strengthen the judicial branch of the Government of Mexico,” it read.

Lopez Obrador had denounced Salazar for allegedly meddling in internal politics.

“How are we going to allow the ambassador to give his opinion, to say what we’re doing is wrong?” Lopez Obrador added. “We aren’t going to tell him to get out of the country. But for him to read our Constitution, yes, we will say that.”

The “pause” will last, according to Lopez Obrador, until “there was confirmation that (the embassies) would respect Mexico’s independence.”

The United States stated in its diplomatic statement that it had “utmost respect for Mexico’s sovereignty.”

The peso fell 1.65% in early afternoon trading in Mexico.

“It has dropped sharply since the June elections, in which Lopez Obrador’s favored successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won the presidency and their Morena party and allies nabbed a supermajority in the lower house and nearly a supermajority in the Senate,” according to Reuters.

It would take a two-thirds majority to amend the Constitution, which is what the judicial reform would require.

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