Many of us have been alarmed at the deterioration of the United States' foreign relations with our allies under the tenure of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Our relationship with Israel has been strained to near the breaking point and our European allies seem to be unsure of how much they can rely on us. Taiwan is constantly looking over its shoulder, wary of a sudden attack by mainland China and what we might do about it in response. Now we can add another country to the list and it's one much closer to home. Yesterday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that he has put his country's relations with the embassies of both the United States and Canada "on pause." The move comes on the heels of criticism aimed at new "judicial reform" proposals being pushed by AMLO. (DW)

Mexico's president has put relations with the United States and Canadian embassies "on pause" after they voiced concerns over a proposed judicial overhaul plan.

The Mexican government has paused its engagement with the ambassadors of the United States and Canada, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday.

The decision comes in the wake of criticism over a sweeping judicial reform proposal in Mexico.

"There is a pause," Lopez Obrador said in a press conference, clarifying that the freeze was with the embassies, from where the criticism came, and not with the countries.

AMLO was quick to point out that the "pause" applied to relations and communications with the American and Canadian embassies, not the countries themselves. But that's almost a distinction without a difference. The Mexican president's major beef is with our Ambassador, Ken Salazar. He immediately raised concerns over the judicial reforms and the corrosive effect they might have on democracy in Mexico. A similar concern was raised by Canada's ambassador. But our ambassadors rarely jump out and do something provocative without first clearing it with the State Department.

The full details of AMLO's "judicial reform" package remain a bit sketchy. They include a proposal to have Mexican judges selected via elections rather than appointments. This idea has alarmed activists both inside and outside of Mexico who fear that such a system would lead to the country's courts being filled by politically biased actors with little judicial experience. That's not an unjustifiable fear, but it's also a bit hypocritical. We have many judges in the lower courts of the United States who are chosen by elections and as we have covered here multiple times, the results are often far from satisfactory. Of course, our appointed judges are also typically identified by the party of the person who nominated them, so perhaps this is a no-win situation.

What seems to be clear here is that AMLO is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He knows full well that the vast majority of his nation's foreign trade (the life blood of a nation like Mexico) takes place with the United States and Canada. If we were to suddenly cut him off, Mexico's economy would collapse virtually overnight. By turning this into a diplomatic spat primarily aimed at embassy personnel, he's trying to prevent the temperature of this dispute from rising too quickly toward dangerous levels. Whether or not that effort succeeds will depend on how these proposed judicial reforms proceed from here.

Keep in mind that AMLO is doing all of this just as he's on his way out the door because of term limits. He will be leaving office on October 1, and being replaced by President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum. We shouldn't expect much of a sea change from that transition, however. Sheinbaum is a long-time ally of AMLO, though she tried to depict herself as more of a moderate during the campaign. What her current relationship with the Mexican drug cartels is like remains to be seen. Hopefully, she's not as firmly in bed with some of them as AMLO seems to have been.