Mexico’s international coverage seems to be largely performed by López Obrador, who additionally just lately positioned “on pause” relations with Peru. Within the case of Peru, López Obrador mentioned Mexico nonetheless acknowledges Pedro Castillo because the Peruvian president regardless of lawmakers eradicating him from workplace final week for attempting to dissolve Congress earlier than a scheduled impeachment vote.
On Thursday, Mexican Overseas Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard met along with his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares, and mentioned that “we’re coming into right into a relaunching, relating to bilateral relations.” The 2 embraced and spoke of recent cooperation through the assembly of the Spain-Mexico Bilateral Fee.
However early Friday, López Obrador contradicted Ebrard, saying: “No, the pause continues, as a result of there is no such thing as a angle of respect on their half.”
In February, López Obrador accused Spanish firms of taking unfair benefit of private-sector openings to signal crooked contracts to construct energy vegetation in Mexico.
In 2020, López Obrador despatched a letter asking Spain to apologize for the brutality of the 1521 conquest of Mexico and centuries of colonial rule.
“I despatched a respectful letter to the top of state, the king of Spain, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to reply me,” the president complained Friday. “They mentioned we needed to thank them for coming right here and colonizing us, and later with the businesses, the identical conceited angle.”
Spain rapidly shot again in a press release from the international ministry.
“The federal government of Spain emphatically rejects the feedback by the president of Mexico about His Majesty the King, Spanish firms and Spanish political sectors,” the assertion mentioned. “These statements are incomprehensible after a profitable Bilateral Fee that supplied so many concrete outcomes.”
The entire thing put Ebrard — who hopes to be nominated by the president’s Morena get together to succeed López Obrador — in a tough spot. Ebrard can’t publicly disagree with the president, although he recommended the Thursday assembly had been accredited by López Obrador.
Mexico’s 2020 letter mentioned, “The Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy and the Mexican authorities ought to make a public apology for the offensive atrocities that Indigenous folks suffered.”
The letter got here as Mexico marked the five hundredth anniversary of the 1519-1521 conquest, which resulted within the dying of a giant a part of the nation’s pre-Hispanic inhabitants.
López Obrador had already requested Spain for an apology for the conquest in 2019. Spain’s international minister on the time, Josep Borrell, mentioned his nation “is not going to challenge these apologies which have been requested.”