Luis Ayllón
The State Secretary for Ibero-America and the Caribbean and for Spanish in the World, Juan Fernández-Trigo, made a quick visit to Mexico on Monday to try to redirect relations with that country, which have deteriorated as a result of continued criticism of Spain by the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources.
The visit was not previously announced, although a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Information Office (OID) confirmed last night, when asked by this website, that Fernández-Trigo had passed through the Mexican capital before heading to Washington to accompany the minister, José Manuel Albares, on his visit to the United States today.
The same spokesman indicated that he had held a meeting with his Mexican counterpart, the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Carmen Moreno, but did not specify what issues were discussed.
The sources consulted by The Diplomat indicated that Fernández-Trigo’s objective was also to talk with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, but that in the end he was unable to do so, and that he travelled to Washington yesterday.
Mexico’s political relations with Spain have been deteriorating steadily since Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office on 1 December 2018, in a ceremony attended by His Majesty the King.
Only a few months after becoming President, López Obrador sent a letter to Felipe VI in which he demanded that Spain apologise to the original peoples of Mexico for the Conquest that began in 1521. When his demand was not met, on several other occasions over the last few years, the Mexican president has launched proclamations against Spain, accusing “the powerful” in our country of “arrogance” for not wanting to apologise.
Tensions have been maintained to the point that Spain was absent from the Mexican Bicentenary of Independence celebrations in September last year, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because Spain was not invited.
The latest incident between the two countries has to do with the Mexican government’s request for a new ambassador in Madrid, to which the Spanish authorities have yet to respond.
López Obrador announced in September that he had chosen as his new ambassador the former governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz, a PRI militant who is now in opposition. The request for his approval was not submitted, however, until the beginning of November, when Ordaz had already stepped down as governor, i.e. just over two and a half months ago.
Under normal circumstances, a request for a placet between Spain and Mexico is granted in a month or a month and a half at most, which is why alarm bells were ringing in the Mexican media, where some even said that the Spanish government had denied authorisation for Ordaz to become the new ambassador.
The reality, according to sources consulted by The Diplomat, is that the Spanish authorities have not refused to give their approval to López Obrador’s proposal, but are taking their time to give the green light to the appointment, in what could be a response to the Mexican president’s hostile attitude towards Spain, despite the ties of all kinds between the two countries.
Spain, according to sources, wants assurances from Mexico that aggressive behaviour towards Spain will cease, and this could have been the aim of Fernández-Trigo’s visit, which, however, did not leave the country very satisfied.
The Sate Secretary travelled to Washington yesterday, where today he will meet with Juan González, assistant to President Biden and director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere; and with Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department; and he will be present at the meeting that Albares will hold with a group of Hispanists.
