The escalation of the American campaign against the regime of Nicolas Maduro has allowed Mexico to send a message of firmness without upsetting the delicate balance with Washington. An extension of the energetic and cold strategy with which President Claudia Sheinbaum faced the confrontations of Donald Trump. The Republican tycoon’s attention is now focused on increasing pressure on Venezuela, without even ruling out a military offensive. The president’s response was to raise the diplomatic tone in defense of Venezuelan sovereignty, thereby sending an indirect signal of protection against the possibility of the attacks spreading to Mexico, something Trump has repeatedly slipped into as part of his strategy of permanent tension.
The conflict with Caracas is going through a particularly delicate moment, following Washington’s marked interest in Venezuelan oil and the enormous military deployment that the United States maintains in the Caribbean, where it has attacked dozens of drug traffickers since September, with a toll of more than 80 dead. What began three months ago as an ambitious operation against drug trafficking has transformed into a direct attack on the finances of the Venezuelan government and the threat of military intervention, with which Donald Trump has more than once toyed, no longer seems a pipe dream. In this context, Sheinbaum took a step forward by urging the United Nations to act to “prevent bloodshed” and to offer Mexican territory for possible negotiation between the two sides.
The Mexican president’s initiative found an echo in Republican ranks. Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar accused this Mexican government official of “supporting the dictatorships” of Cuba and Venezuela. Despite the rise in tone, Sheinbaum insists that his position remains within the historical framework of Mexican diplomacy, based on respect for the sovereignty of third countries and the absence of foreign interference. In a purely bilateral relationship, the Mexican president has opted for a strategy that attempts to combine firmness and caution in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on different fronts: security, trade, migration.
The classification of Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations and the recent designation of fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” are moves that open the door to a possible US military incursion into Mexico. The Sheinbaum government’s response was to increase drug arrests and arrests, as well as send dozens of imprisoned drug trafficking mafia leaders to U.S. prisons. “The Mexican government has everything it can to adapt to the reality of the new Trump. This is why Casa Blanca’s relations with Venezuela put Mexico in a very uncomfortable situation,” says Carlos Bravo, researcher in international relations.
A recent national security strategy document, personally signed by President Trump, explicitly lays out a new doctrine from the late 19th century that justified American interventionism in the rest of the American continent. Hence the unfortunate motto of Latin America, American back patio, which materialized, for example, through direct intervention in Cuba at the end of the 19th century or through support for coups d’état, such as that of Augusto Pinochet in Chile in 1973. “he pilladora in the most bitter way possible, to show that he is the center of the world,” added colmex historian Lorenzo Meyer.
This crude speech is, for the analysts consulted, the ideal justification for a brutal but measured response from Mexico. “Mexico’s foreign policy, by its tradition and history, cannot validate these narratives. That is why President Sheinbaum has tactfully encouraged action by the United Nations, even though we all know that it will be difficult to have consequences when it comes to the interests of the great powers,” adds Meyer. The Mexican president would follow, according to the historian, a diplomatic tradition stemming from the Mexican Revolution, when these principles of respect for sovereignty and refusal of any interference were forged, precisely, as a principle of self-defense in the face of the expansionist policies of the United States.
Within these diplomatic balances, another old principle of international relations, which still seems to be in force, indicated a sort of tacit agreement between Mexico and the United States by which the north could always take positions contrary to the north and when this did not pose a serious problem. Investigator Bravo gives as an example Mexico’s support in the middle of the Cold War for Castroist Cuba, the ultimate enemy of the United States. With this movement, the Priist government of the time could display left-wing credentials but without weakening the bilateral relationship. “Something similar,” he points out, “is currently happening with Venezuela. The Morenist governments have been very aligned, at least they have shown respect and friendship, with very authoritarian left-wing governments, such as Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. This latest movement allows President Sheinbaum to take a certain distance from the United States, without there being any consequences.”
Mexico has hosted a negotiation table between Chavismo and the opposition for three years, with very convincing results. “Maduro’s dictatorship is much more difficult than negotiation. It will not happen. And then, if Trump wants to fight with Mexico, he has other justifications that are much easier than the Venezuelan theme,” said Bravo, who maintains that “we are arriving at something that looks like foreign policy but in reality it is a domestic policy designed for a long time.”
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