The AMLO plan to try to calm Biden and Trudeau

President López Obrador believes that his strategy to meet the demands of the United States government in energy matters has been successful. The best proof is that he just applied the same formula to Prime Minister Trudeau: instead of promising changes to his government’s energy policy, he promised to meet with individual investors who have complained.

It is exactly the same thing that he did with President Biden and with Ambassador Salazar. A year ago, when they raised the tone of the electricity claims, President López Obrador did not give in to anything: he did not change his permit delivery policy, nor did he retract any of the policies (many of them suspended by Mexican courts) that seek to discriminate against private investors. Furthermore, he has continued to litigate in favor of his reform of the electricity industry law. But if he summoned the directors of 17 American companies in the National Palace. And there, in front of the ambassador, he promised to help several.

Perhaps many of these investors have been grateful, both with President López Obrador and with Ambassador Salazar. The specific mission of those meetings seems to have been accomplished. But only disparaging the United States government could one believe that his officials did not notice the absurdity of the situation: López Obrador offered nothing more than individual relief from the generalized discriminatory policies that he himself continues to promote. Individualizing the conflict with the companies, and promising solutions only in that area, was nothing more than a marometa to avoid the rush of the claim. And trivialize it.

As if the position of President Biden’s Administration was the mere sum of the interests of 17 companies. Or as if Trudeau’s claim, now that he was particularly assertive in his government’s claim, was nothing more than a vulgar attempt to placate a handful of Canadian companies.

Of course, the Mexican energy authorities themselves recognize that the issue is much broader. It is systematic. The National Center for Energy Control has “litigations with everyone,” as its director acknowledged to Arturo Solís of Bloomberg Línea last Wednesday.

They are a total of 160 assets that, under some calculations, could represent the overwhelming majority of private assets. “We don’t let them connect or they are connected but we restrict what they can deliver to the network,” he explained right there. That is just what the governments of President Biden, who had just left, and Prime Minister Trudeau, who was still in Mexico at the time, have demanded.

Still, President López Obrador could be right. His strategy can still be successful. Despite the unusual responses and statements from the Mexican government, the governments of the United States and Canada have expressed optimism in the possibility of advancing energy solutions. And, having met the minimum deadlines, neither government has requested the establishment of the panel yet.

Perhaps because of the emphasis on symbolism at the North American Leaders’ Summit, all of this has become terribly symbolic. Since we believed that there really was a North American concept, the three countries have maintained that its heart is a system of objective rules. Of course it does not mean that none of the countries follow all the rules.

But American trade affairs, we like to boast, are distinguished by their “rule of law.” What would it mean for North America if its most important trade dispute in decades – one that strikes at the heart of the region’s competitiveness and sustainability – were resolved by making an exception to insisting on compliance with objective rules?

@pzarater