Foreign policy of A.M. López Obrador: Declarations and reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-202
Author(s):  
V. L. Jeifets

The paper examines the foreign policy of Mexico during the first years of President A. M. López Obrador (AMLO) administration (2018‒2020). The research aims to both identify the key priorities of the country’s foreign policy (i.e., relations with the United States and Latin American countries, particularly in the context of the Venezuelan and Bolivian crises, as well as the Central American migration crisis) and to weigh it up against traditional patterns of Mexico’s foreign policy behavior, as well as to assess its overall feasibility. The latter issue is all the more relevant since the center-left administration of AMLO is constantly criticized for its ‘populism’. The paper shows that Mexico continues to prioritize relations with the United States not only in terms of economic cooperation (within the USMCA framework) and in addressing the migration crisis but also in terms of the overall foreign policy agenda setting as well. However, the author emphasizes that although the pressure from the United States is significant and can take various forms, Mexico manages to pursue an independent and multifaceted policy, as the Venezuelan and Bolivian crises have shown. Such a policy is based on the traditional principles that have crystallized during the years of maneuvering between the interests of the great powers and which, according to AMLO and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should not be subject to any revision. These principles include non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and respect for their sovereignty, as well as respect for the right to political asylum. It is these principles that may contribute to reinforcing the international role of Mexico both regionally and globally despite a rather limited involvement of the current administration in foreign policy matters and its focus on domestic issues. Thus, the author concludes that beneath the populist rhetoric of A. M. López Obrador lies a fairly traditional foreign policy, warranted by the domestic situation and international environment.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-79
Author(s):  
Nargiza Sodikova ◽  
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Important aspects of French foreign policy and national interests in the modern time,France's position in international security and the specifics of foreign affairs with the United States and the European Union are revealed in this article


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Jenichen

AbstractIt is a common—often stereotypical—presumption that Europe is secular and America religious. Differences in international religious freedom and religious engagement policies on both sides of the Atlantic seem to confirm this “cliché.” This article argues that to understand why it has been easier for American supporters to institutionalize these policies than for advocates in the EU, it is important to consider the discursive structures of EU and US foreign policies, which enable and constrain political language and behavior. Based on the analysis of foreign policy documents, produced by the EU and the United States in their relationship with six religiously diverse African and Asian states, the article compares how both international actors represent religion in their foreign affairs. The analysis reveals similarities in the relatively low importance that they attribute to religion and major differences in how they represent the contribution of religion to creating and solving problems in other states. In sum, the foreign policies of both international actors are based on a secular discursive structure, but that of the United States is much more accommodative toward religion, including Islam, than that of the EU.


1985 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Cohen

The global debt problem influences the foreign-policy capabilities of the United States through its impact on the government's “linkage strategies” in foreign affairs. In some circumstances policy makers are forced to make connections between different policy instruments or issues that might not otherwise have been felt necessary; in others, opportunities for connections are created that might not otherwise have been felt possible. The Polish debt crisis of 1981–82, the Latin American debt crisis of 1982–83, and the IMF quota increase in 1983 are suggestive in this regard. Linkage strategies bred by the debt issue are more apt to be successful when the interest shared by the United States with other countries in avoiding default is reinforced by other shared economic or political interests. They will also be more successful to the extent that the government can supplement its own power resources by relating bank decisions to foreign-policy considerations. Power in such situations, however, is a wasting asset, even when employed indirectly through the intermediation of the IMF.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory F. Domber

This article evaluates the U.S. role in the revolutions of 1989, specifically the claim that the U.S. government was a catalyst, accelerating the pace of change in Eastern Europe. Drawing from memoirs, declassified U.S. cables, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports, and underground literature from the Polish opposition, the article shows that the policy of George H. W. Bush's administration was not a “catalyst” and did not even “grease the skids” to remove Communist governments from power during the first ten months of 1989. Rather, the United States pursued a much more cautious policy that actively sought to impede the pace of change. The evidence indicates that U.S. policy was much more fixated on promoting stability in Eastern Europe, preferring evolutionary change to revolutionary transformation. The article concludes by placing these findings in the context of the emerging scholarship on the revolutions of 1989 and the Bush administration's foreign policy


2000 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Katz

In the eyes of many North Americans, Mexico is above all a country of immigration from which hundreds of thousands hope to pass across the border to find the promised land in the United States. What these North Americans do not realize is that for thousands of Latin Americans and for many U.S. intellectuals, Mexico after the revolution of 1910-1920 constituted the promised land. People persecuted for their political or religious beliefs—radicals, revolutionaries but liberals as well—could find refuge in Mexico when repressive regimes took over their country.In the 1920s such radical leaders as Víctor Raúl Haya De La Torre, César Augusto Sandino and Julio Antonio Mella found refuge in Mexico. This policy continued for many years even after the Mexican government turned to the right. Thousands of refugees from Latin American military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay fled to Mexico. The history of that policy of the Mexican government has not yet been written.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (23) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Alberto Ardila Castro ◽  
Jessica Andrea Rodríguez

China has had a significant incidence in various sectors of African and Latin American politics, economy, and trade. There is no denying that its foreign policy has strategic interests in both regions. One of the most outstanding features of Chinese politics is its desire to promote cooperation to foster a renaissance between Asia and Latin America and Africa. Unlike the old colonial masters, China is committed to providing these regions with new opportunities for development. Bearing in mind Alfred Mahan’s theory of naval power, and the strategic rearguard that, at a given time, it allowed the United States, China is attempting to maintain the strategic center of gravity, which the economic control of Latin America and Africa and its surrounding resources provides to generate a strategic expansion that would ensure its interests and power in the hemisphere. In exchange, China strives to promote economic, commercial, political, and social development in African and Latin American societies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Dingeman ◽  
Yekaterina Arzhayev ◽  
Cristy Ayala ◽  
Erika Bermudez ◽  
Lauren Padama ◽  
...  

The United States deported 24,870 women in 2013, mostly to Latin America. We examine life history interviews with Mexican and Central American women who were apprehended, detained, and experienced different outcomes. We find that norms of the “crimmigration era” override humanitarian concerns, such that the state treats migrants as criminals first and as persons with claims for relief second. Removal and relief decisions appear less dependent on eligibility than geography, access to legal aid, and public support. Women’s experiences parallel men’s but are often worsened by their gendered statuses. Far from passively accepting the violence of crimmigration, women resist through discourse and activism.


2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (03) ◽  
pp. 682-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Switky

ABSTRACTThe humanitarian impulse in the United States routinely clashes with isolationist sentiment, with appeals to the national interest, and with apathy in and out of government. This class exercise encourages students to explore the contours of the debate over humanitarian intervention with a crisis unfolding in Belagua, a fictitious Latin American country. As the crisis deteriorates, students increasingly feel the tension between wanting to help the at-risk civilian population and avoiding a messy conflict from which the United States could have trouble extracting itself. The project requires students to address key questions about the US role in the Belagua case and to consider what the United States could or should have done in actual situations, such as Rwanda and Syria. Because these crises are likely to occur in the decades to come, this exercise initiates students to the challenges that the United States, as well as the international community, undoubtedly will face.


Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem

The book analyzes the influence of National Review, Human Events, and Commentary on the foreign policy ideas of the Republican Party from 1964–1980. During that eighteen-year period, the publications of conservative opinion provided ideological clarification on important national issues that played a fundamental role in reviving the political fortunes of the American Right, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan. Those who wrote for these publications used their positions to offer suggestions to conservative policy makers that called for a more confrontational approach toward the Soviet Union and the nations that sought to compromise the United States’ interests around the world. In recommending a shift in foreign policy, Human Events, National Review, and Commentary assisted right-wing decision makers by contributing arguments to revive what these publications believed was a weak and indecisive United States that had become uncertain about its role in the world following the defeat in Vietnam. By criticizing policies, such as détente, or the aggressiveness of the Third World within the United Nations, opinion makers on the Right offered conservative political leaders information and analysis that called for the return of American power in the face of an ever more confident Soviet Union.


1982 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-333
Author(s):  
James F. Vivian

The Right Reverend Monsignor William T. Russell, pastor of Saint Patrick's Church in Washington, D.C., since 1908 and reputedly one of the finest preachers in the country, agreed to an unusual interview during the spring of 1912. Five other clergy, including a rabbi, likewise participated in separate sessions with the same Protestant minister. The resulting six semiautobiographical accounts appeared as a weekly series in Collier's magazine at midyear. Unlike the companion pieces, however, the article devoted to Msgr. Russell appeared at a particularly timely moment. On the one hand, the Pan-American Thanksgiving Day celebration, although just three years old, seemed well on the way toward becoming an annual observance that neither the president of the United States nor the Latin American diplomatic contingent could slight idly. Yet, on the other hand, the article heralded a major Protestant protest that would call the entire basis of the celebration into public and even political question. Upon assuming the presidency in 1913, an unsuspecting Woodrow Wilson would find himself inadvertently drawn into an interdenominational dispute over the special Catholic service. Embarrassed to the point of privately admitting a clumsy mistake, Wilson eventually yielded to the critics and finally withdrew his support from an implied experiment in the cultural extension of a famous holiday.


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