In the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies inaugurated the Mexico-Russia Friendship Group on Wednesday.
The initiative was promoted by the leftist Labor Party (PT), which is part of the government bloc of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Its members, among whom there are also deputies from the ruling Morena party, assure that it is a gesture in favor of the diplomatic resolution of conflicts.
For others, however, it is a decision erroneous that also arrives at a bad time.
Opposition deputies demonstrated to condemn the creation of this group, which they consider an offense against the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Participation in the event was also controversial. Russian ambassador to Mexico, Viktor Koronelli, who praised the Mexican government’s foreign policy on the ongoing war.
“We highly value the position, the position of the Mexican government in the face of the Ukrainian crisis ”, declared Putin’s envoy on Wednesday, who welcomed the fact that the López Obrador government has distanced itself from its Western partners.
A half conviction
When Russia began to invade Ukraine on February, Mexico, which is currently a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, hesitated to take a clear position on the invasion .
In his speech after beginning and he conflict, López Obrador condemned “any invasion, by any power, in this case Russia”.
Unlike most of its Western partners, it has refused to impose sanctions on the government of Vladimir Putin and on Russian companies, as well and to send weapons to Ukraine.
The president argued that his government adheres to the Mexican Constitution, which advocates non-intervention, self-determination of peoples, and the peaceful solution of conflicts.
One country, two positions?
“ It is necessary to differentiate between the declarations of the president and some actors of his party, and the official positions that Mexico presents in international organizations”, the political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Khemvirg Puente explains to BBC Mundo.
The creation of the parliamentary friendship group with Russia took place on the same day that the embassy President of Mexico before the United Nations, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, presented a new resolution together with France to demand that Moscow stop its attacks.
The resolution, approved with 140 votes to favor, 38 abstentions and 5 against, was applauded by Ukraine and reviled by Russia, which considered it to serve of US and Western interests.
For academic Sergio Aguayo, researcher in international studies at the Colegio de México, what happened almost simultaneously on Wednesday at the Mexican Parliament and at the UN headquarters in New York reveals contradictions.
“They are two expressions of a because there is no guiding line on the issue of the invasion of Ukraine to guide Mexico’s foreign policy, but these lurches,” he asserts.
Aguayo also believes that the misalignment between Mexico and the West on issues such as sanctions or the shipment of weapons in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine “is more a position of the president and a small group of radical sectors, than of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
The Foreign Ministry, in his opinion, “is in favor of a more active policy to support Ukraine, but it has the limits set by the president.”
Why does López Obrador assume this position in the conflict?
“We have this ambivalence of the president who does not want a confrontation with Russia because in his speech he always seeks to try to look good with all the countries, mainly with the powerful ones”, affirms, for his part, Khemvirg Puente.
López Obrador has maintained fluid relations with the leaders of the main powers in recent years, from Donald Trump to Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The UNAM political scientist believes that “the last thing he wants” the Mexican president is a conflict with Russia or China, and “that is why in his speech he avoids directly condemning Russia’s actions.”
In any case, he points out, the Russian government “appreciates the president’s speech, but they are not naive and they know the position that Mexico has in the Security Council of the UN”.
Trade and investment
On the economic plane, the expert also sees possible reasons for the Mexican ambiguity in the conflict.
“Any disagreement with a power like Russia that could have repercussions on investment in Mexico would affect the country, so it also wants to avoid any type of sanctions on these countries.”
Although Russia occupies a marginal place in Mexico’s trade compared to the US and other countries in the region, the Latin American country imports a large quantity of fertilizers from its Slavic counterpart, essential for its agricultural sector.
On 2021 Mexico exported to the Russian market products worth $499 million dollars, mostly cars and parts, while its imports from the Slavic country totaled $2,140 million, according to official data.
Russian investment in Mexico is estimated at $132.6 million dollars, with important companies present in the Latin American country such as the gas giant Gazprom and the oil company Lukoil, which has an exploration and extraction contract with the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).
Mexico, historical neutrality?
To justify his decision to distance himself from Western allies by not imposing sanctions on Russia or supplying weapons to Ukraine, the Mexican president also alluded to historical reasons.
According to López Obrador, the history of Mexico is closely linked to non-intervention in foreign conflicts and not taking part in “decisions” of other countries “in any field”.
Aguayo believes that this argument is not valid: “our history is full of cases in which Mexico does take a position”.
“At the end of the 70 Mexico actively supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, and in the Spanish Civil War it sent weapons to the Republican side and then refused to have relations with the Franco government. And those are just two of more examples.”
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