Mexico's president announces 'pause' in relationship with U.S. Embassy

Andrés Manuel López Obrador leans back in a chair, raises his eyebrows and holds up his index finger.

Aug. 27, 2024 2:48 PM PT

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a “pause” in his nation’s relations with the United States and Canadian embassies after the ambassadors from those countries criticized his plan to dramatically overhaul the justice system.

“They have to learn to respect the sovereignty of Mexico,” López Obrador told journalists Tuesday morning at his daily news conference.

His comments came after U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar and his Canadian counterpart expressed their concern about sweeping changes proposed by López Obrador to Mexico’s courts.

Under the plan, which the president hopes to push through Congress during his final month in office, federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court, would lose their jobs, and their replacements would be elected by popular vote.

López Obrador contends that the courts, which have ruled against several of his legislative efforts in recent years, are corrupt.

His critics say there’s no evidence of that, and that putting judges up for election would politicize the judiciary and give even more power to López Obrador’s ruling Morena party. Last week, thousands of judges and other court employees walked off the job in protest. Over the weekend, marchers took to the streets in more than a dozen cities to oppose the changes.

Concern about the implications of López Obrador’s comments sent the peso tumbling. Several U.S. banks have warned in recent weeks that the proposed judicial overhaul poses serious financial risks for Mexico and could damage bilateral trade.

The U.S. and Canadian embassies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Salazar came out publicly against the president’s plan last week, saying the overhaul would “threaten the historic trade relationship we have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.”

“Direct elections would also make it easier for cartels and other bad actors to take advantage of politically motivated and inexperienced judges,” said Salazar, who before becoming ambassador served as a senator, Interior secretary and as Colorado’s attorney general.

“Based on my lifelong experience supporting the rule of law, I believe popular direct election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy,” he said.

That outraged López Obrador, who called Salazar’s comments “disrespectful.” He said Mexico had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. complaining that the ambassador’s comments “represent an unacceptable interference, a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”

When López Obrador was asked on Tuesday whether he was in dialogue with Salazar, the president said that his relationship with the ambassador had been “on pause.”

“We are not going to tell him to leave the country,” the president said of Salazar. “But we do have to read him the Constitution — it is like reading him the riot act.”

He said his government was abstaining from communication with the U.S. and Canadian embassies. But the broader U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship continued as normal, he said.

López Obrador, a left-leaning populist with high approval ratings, has long criticized the United States for intervening in Mexico’s domestic affairs.

His administration’s cooperation with U.S. law enforcement officials has deteriorated since he accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating a case against a former Mexican defense minister who was arrested by American authorities in 2020. López Obrador successfully pressured the U.S. to drop all charges against the general and return him to Mexico.

López Obrador first proposed the judicial reform in February, after several of his legislative initiatives, including controversial changes to the country’s elections institute, were hamstrung by Supreme Court rulings.

He has complained that judges on the nation’s highest court are part of a “power mafia” and says they and other members of the judiciary should be elected just like the president or senators.

Along with changing how judges are chosen, the proposal would also reduce their terms, tie their salaries to those of the executive branch and create a judicial disciplinary tribunal whose members are elected by popular vote for terms that coincide with the six-year presidential term.

Most sitting judges, including those on the Supreme Court, would have to conclude their term when newly elected judges were sworn in.

Few countries elect Supreme Court judges by popular vote.

An analysis of the proposed reform carried out by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Stanford Law School Rule of Law Impact Lab and the Mexican Bar Assn. found that the proposals, if approved, “would undermine the foundation of the rule of law in Mexico.”

“These proposals constitute a direct threat to judicial independence,” it said. “They violate international legal standards on the independence, impartiality, and competence of the judiciary.”

López Obrador’s proposal has also drawn criticism from the U.S. Senate, with several key members of the Foreign Relations Committee issuing a statement Tuesday warning that the proposed judicial reforms “would undermine the independence and transparency of the country’s judiciary, jeopardizing critical economic and security interests shared by our two nations.”

In Mexico, many questioned López Obrador’s decision to inflame tensions with the U.S. weeks before his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is sworn in to office Oct. 1. A member of López Obrador’s Morena party and his longtime political protege, Sheinbaum has said she supports the judicial overhaul.

On Tuesday, she said she also supported López Obrador’s decision to suspend relations with the U.S. Embassy “in the face of the insult levied by the ambassador.”

“There are issues that correspond exclusively to Mexicans and are for Mexicans to decide,” she said.

Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.