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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s election czar delivered a message to the American ambassador: The Mexican president was mounting an all-out assault on the nationwide elections authority, sowing doubt a few pillar of the nation’s democracy.
However as a substitute of expressing alarm, America’s high diplomat in Mexico took up one of many president’s traces of assault, entertaining claims that an election lengthy previously, in 2006, had been stolen from the Mexican chief.
The ambassador, Ken Salazar, mentioned in an interview that he was not satisfied that the election was clear, difficult the stance of america at a time when democracy is below menace at residence and throughout the hemisphere.
Mr. Salazar, who invited the election overseer to his residence, advised The New York Instances he wished to know: “Was there fraud?”
The matter had lengthy been settled — for Mexico’s judicial system, the European Union and the American authorities — till now.
This ambassador’s willingness to query the election’s legitimacy is the most recent instance of what a number of U.S. officers say is a worrying sample, wherein America’s high diplomat in Mexico has appeared to contradict his personal authorities’s insurance policies within the curiosity of aligning himself with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
When he took the job in September 2021, Mr. Salazar was advised to prioritize constructing a powerful relationship with Mr. López Obrador in hopes it will advance the White Home’s agenda.
As the first buffer between america and record-high flows of migrants, Mr. López Obrador holds monumental leverage over Mr. Biden and his presidency.
Preserving Mexico’s cooperation, administration officers mentioned, meant avoiding battle with a mercurial Mexican chief who had the ability to wreck Mr. Biden’s political future by refusing to carry the road on migration.
Mr. Salazar has in actual fact succeeded in getting near the Mexican president.
However there may be rising concern throughout the administration that the ambassador might have really compromised U.S. pursuits within the course of — and has not leveraged the connection into coverage wins when Mr. Biden wants them most, based on interviews with greater than a dozen present and former officers and analysts.
The ambassador has rehashed debunked claims of a stolen election utilized by the Mexican president to gas mistrust within the nation’s democracy; questioned the integrity of a U.S.-funded anticorruption nonprofit that had gone up towards the president; triggered a political storm by showing to sign help for an vitality overhaul the U.S. authorities opposed; and has stayed silent as Mr. López Obrador relentlessly assaults journalists.
In strategically essential international locations ruled by risky leaders, U.S. ambassadors typically must stroll a high quality line between cultivating a bond with the president and pushing their very own authorities’s priorities.
Mr. Salazar insists his “direct relationship” with Mr. López Obrador advantages america.
But contained in the U.S. authorities, some are questioning whether or not the administration’s tender method is definitely working — or merely emboldening Mr. López Obrador as he challenges American affect and undermines democratic safeguards, based on senior U.S. officers who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
The Mexican chief has pursued an vitality agenda that threatens American firms and repeatedly makes use of his bully pulpit to discredit and personally insult those that query his authorities.
The economic system is cratering, violence continues to rage and now Mexico — not Central America — has grow to be the most important supply of migrants arriving on the U.S. border.
Even after the ambassador’s appeal offensive, the Mexican president led a number of leaders in boycotting a significant summit hosted by the administration in June, embarrassing Mr. Biden on a worldwide stage.
“The ambassador believes he’s near AMLO,” mentioned Duncan Wooden, the vice chairman of technique on the Wilson Heart, utilizing the Mexican chief’s nickname. “Is there something to indicate for it? I can’t discover something.”
The Biden administration, Mr. Wooden mentioned, is “being performed by AMLO.”
From the start of his tenure, Mr. Biden has had a fraught relationship with the Mexican president, who initially refused to acknowledge his election victory.
President Donald J. Trump, when he was in workplace, coerced Mr. López Obrador into executing his exhausting line immigration coverage below the specter of tariffs, and in alternate left the Mexican chief alone to pursue his home agenda.
The Biden administration is simply as reliant on Mexico for migration enforcement, and Mr. López Obrador’s authorities has devoted vital assets to that effort, arresting a document variety of migrants final 12 months.
On the identical time, although, Mr. Biden has vowed to pursue a broader agenda within the area, together with defending human rights and democracy — with out the heavy-handed ways of his predecessor.
Mr. Salazar was seen as the right man to mollify the Mexican president. Officers assumed the previous Democratic senator’s folksy method would work properly with Mr. López Obrador’s man-of-the-people persona.
“What we have to do is to handle these enormous, unprecedented issues collectively,” Mr. Salazar mentioned. “And you’ll’t do it when you have an enemy.”
Mr. Salazar meets with Mexico’s chief frequently, securing vital entry to the nation’s high energy dealer.
As Mr. López Obrador pursued vitality overhauls, the ambassador arrange conferences between the Mexican chief and U.S. firms affected. Mr. Salazar advised Reuters that the U.S. authorities is making progress on settling disputes affecting greater than $30 billion of American funding in Mexico’s vitality sector.
Publicly, the Biden administration stands by Mr. Salazar.
“A number of the criticism that’s levied at him is as a result of he’s participating so actively with this authorities, however frankly, he’s doing it to attempt to advance U.S. pursuits,” mentioned Juan Gonzalez, Mr. Biden’s high adviser on Latin America.
As for Mr. López Obrador’s declare that the 2006 election was stolen from him, Mr. Gonzalez confirmed in an interview that the U.S. place on the matter “has not modified,” regardless of the ambassador’s skepticism.
“We acknowledge the result of the election outcomes,” Mr. Gonzalez mentioned. “The U.S. has been on the document.”
Mr. Salazar, nonetheless, advised The New York Instances that he was “not conscious of the U.S. authorities line,” and that he nonetheless had doubts: “I’ve been advised by many individuals who watched the vote that night time, together with those that haven’t any ax to grind, who’re very credible folks, that there was fraud.”
It’s episodes like these which have stoked considerations amongst U.S. officers who say that the ambassador might have gone too far. At occasions, he has triggered confusion concerning the U.S. place on among the most delicate coverage points.
Weeks after Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. vitality secretary, flew to Mexico to specific concern concerning the vitality modifications, Mr. Salazar appeared to contradict her message, telling Mexican journalists that “the president is correct” to pursue modifications to the legislation.
The remark, which Mr. Salazar mentioned was taken out of context, was marshaled by Mr. López Obrador to sign the ambassador’s help for laws that may increase Mexico’s state-owned electrical utility and jeopardize billions in U.S. investments.
In March, the Mexican president invited the ambassador to affix him at his every day information convention, the place he takes the stage to push authorities speaking factors and assail anybody he considers an adversary — together with the U.S. authorities.
Mr. Salazar wished to attend, he advised The Instances, however his employees urged him to rethink, arguing that standing by Mr. López Obrador throughout certainly one of his tirades could be dangerous for the Biden administration.
Ultimately, the potential awkwardness was prevented by what the ambassador mentioned was a “scheduling battle.”
Earlier this 12 months, one outstanding civic chief wrote to Mr. Salazar looking for help towards Mr. López Obrador’s assaults on advocacy teams. The chief, María Amparo Casar, was then summoned to Mr. Salazar’s residence.
Ms. Casar’s nonprofit, Mexicans In opposition to Corruption and Impunity, investigates graft and is a daily goal of Mr. López Obrador’s scorn.
The president had additionally assailed the U.S. authorities for funding the group, which was co-founded by a businessman who left the group to type an opposition motion.
A senior Biden administration official had already advised Mr. Salazar that the administration wouldn’t pull financing for the group, mentioned two U.S. officers who weren’t licensed to talk publicly.
However within the lead-up to the assembly, he advised his employees he had grown suspicious of the group and wished to research it.
The ambassador advised The Instances he believed the opposition activism of the group’s founder “created the looks of impropriety” and mentioned he would “advocate for the funding to be minimize” if he discovered fees of political exercise to be credible.
On the assembly, Mr. Salazar grilled Ms. Casar, questioning whether or not her group was secretly concerned in politics. Ms. Casar, shocked, mentioned no, explaining that U.S. authorities auditors had decided again and again that the group was not concerned in politics.
“Why ought to I imagine you?” the ambassador then requested, based on two folks acquainted with the assembly who requested to not be named for concern of reprisal.
“The one proof I’ve is my phrase,” Ms. Casar answered. The ambassador advised her that “this doesn’t scent good,” earlier than abruptly rising and chopping the assembly quick.
Mr. Salazar advised The Instances he had each proper to boost “authorized and moral” points with a recipient of U.S. funding, including, “Someone can inform you numerous issues that simply aren’t true.”
Mr. Gonzalez advised The Instances that the American authorities would proceed to fund Ms. Casar’s group. “The coverage of the U.S. is obvious on this,” he mentioned.
The entire political capital the ambassador has tried to construct with Mexico’s president was not sufficient to cease him from delivering a humiliating rebuke to Mr. Biden final month.
Within the lead as much as a key regional summit hosted by the administration in June, the Mexican president repeatedly bashed america for not inviting Cuba, Nicaragua or Venezuela.
Mr. Salazar pleaded with him to attend, mentioned a U.S. Embassy official who requested anonymity to keep away from reprisal, however Mr. López Obrador stored threatening to boycott the occasion, and a wave of nations adopted go well with.
In a last-ditch effort at diplomacy, the ambassador paid a go to to Mexico’s most essential spiritual website, a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the day earlier than the summit was set to start.
“I pray on the Basilica to the Patroness of the Americas to elevate up our leaders to chart a brand new transformative period for the Americas and the US-Mexico relationship,” Mr. Salazar posted on Twitter.
Mr. López Obrador formally dropped out of the occasion the subsequent day.
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