As soon as he arrived in the capital of the United States, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leaned on the windowsill of the hotel where he stayed to receive the positive vibes from fans of the Mexican diaspora. From the sidewalk, they sent saludos and bendiciones to the populist leader. AMLO landed in Washington a month after snubbing President Joe Biden, refusing to accept the invitation to the Summit of the Americas, in solidarity with the dictatorships of Cuba and Nicaragua that had vetoed access to the continental event.
The next day, sitting next to Biden, in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office of the White House, AMLO, as he is called, abused that moment when the two presidents exchange a few words in front of the press. The Mexican spoke for almost 30 minutes. Looking at his audience on both sides of the border, in a way, AMLO behaved as if he were still perched on a balcony cheering his cheerleading squad.
The Mexican president gloated over the American energy crisis saying that he was happy and pleased to know that Mexico was helping the United States, as his country became an option for Americans who live near the border, who turn to the neighboring country to fill their cars with cheaper fuel. “While you wait for the price of gas to drop, we allow Americans to fill up their cars on the Mexican side,” said AMLO.
A typical banality of those who take pleasure in telling Americans how much better life below the Rio Grande is than in the United States. But…
AMLO’s theater ignores the tragedy that is his country – as a source and as a route – in terms of drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Activities that go together and that are some of the biggest sources of instability in the United States. His trump card is even more pathetic if you consider the fact that if he closed the border to Americans looking to save a dollar per gallon (3.30 liters) of gasoline, it would drastically change the lives of those who use Mexican fuel.
Mexico is a symbolic case of the Latin American tragedy. The country is the second largest exporter to the United States, second only to China. Last year, Americans bought from Mexico US$ 388, 4 billion. To get an idea of the size of the fortune that the United States transfers to the Mexican economy, in 2021 the sum of all Brazilian exports, to all destinations added together, was US$ 280,4 billion.
In other words, what makes the United States the United States and Mexico Mexico is not the position in relation to the its borders. What defines what each nation was, what it is, and what it will be is the attitude of those who live in it. The data on foreign trade with the United States is just one factor that shows that Mexicans suffer in an underdeveloped country with huge portions of its territory controlled by parastatal forces and trafficking cartels, while it could be a developed country.
On the other hand, the waves of immigrants with little or no professional qualifications who arrive at the border (it is important to note here that not only Mexicans, but also immigrants from other Central American countries) risk their lives in hand of traffickers and coyotes to reach the United States and almost always reproduce as much as possible the life they so wanted to abandon. Go figure.
Cracked up by its irresponsible environmental policy and the reduction in oil supply as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration is up for any and all tricks in exchange for a few barrels. He gave a platform to AMLO’s nonsense, exchanged cuddles with the Saudis that Biden, during the 2020 campaign, had promised to punish for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and relaxed pressure on the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The United States is weird. The country is tangled up amid the stupidest agendas and has been squandering money and relevance to act cute on behalf of the pleas of spoiled politicians and activists fresh out of fifth grade. But to think that the mere fact that a few dripping cats go to Mexico to fill up their cars is a good reason to show the world yet another irrefutable evidence of the decline of the “empire” is the stuff of braggart. AMLO is one of them. And he is not alone.