Assertive Mexico seeks regional leadership role

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

Whether the meeting in Mexico City of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) culminates in a rumoured mass exodus from the Organisation of American States (OAS), Mexico has signalled that it wants a leadership role in Latin America after years of focusing almost exclusively on its bilateral relationship with the US.

It was precisely the closeness of that relationship that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador cited in July, in proposing that Mexico help the region open a dialogue with the US Government to reorient a relationship based on a two-century-old model he said had no future.

Turning their backs on the US was also not an option, Lopez Obrador said. Mexico’s proposal was for something closer to the model of the European Union. ‘‘In that spirit, you mustn’t rule out the substitution of the (OAS) with a truly autonomous body, a lackey to no-one,’’ he said.

Enter the CELAC. It has existed for only 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 the OAS, the US and Canada are not members of CELAC. Nor is Brazil, which

withdrew in January 2020.

Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard has been outspoken on the inequality and disparities in access to Covid-19 vaccines – and CELAC has become 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 vaccines. But at the same time, Ebrard worked through CELAC to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine in Argentina and Mexico and distribute it throughout the region.

In a speech late last month, Ebrard criticised the OAS.

‘‘The OAS became out of date because the world changed,’’ Ebrard said. ‘‘Goodbye OAS, in its interventionist, interfering and hegemonic sense.’’ There should be ‘‘another organisation that we build politically in agreement with the United States for the 21st century, and not the 19th century or the 20th century’’.

Hence the speculation that Mexico could lead other countries in leaving the OAS.

Along with its vaccine efforts in the region, Mexico recently hosted a new round of dialogue between the Venezuelan government and that country’s opposition in Mexico City.

Mexico’s president has also been cooperative with the both the Trump and Biden Administrations on immigration, deploying security forces to try to contain migrants in southern Mexico, and allowing the US to return non-Mexican asylum seekers to await their cases in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador this week hosted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and railed against the US economic blockade of Cuba. Mexico recently sent ships with food, medicine and fuel to the island.

Leaving the OAS would be a great risk, as it has the membership and financial support of major economies like the US, Canada and Brazil but still struggles financially.

Such a move could also be especially costly in terms of human rights. The OAS is the foundation of the hemisphere’s human rights and regional justice system.

Rafael Elias Rojas, a professor of history at Mexico College and an expert in Latin American diplomacy, expressed doubts about Mexico’s efforts to lead, due to how polarised the region is. ‘‘Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has never been a moment so low for Latin Americanism.’’