US, Canada Lobby Mexico for Energy Policy at First T-MEC Meeting

The contradictions of the Mexican government, which seeks to concentrate the energy monopoly in state-owned enterprises while it must comply with the Free Trade Agreement with its North American partners, are just one ” “dead end legal ”, according to the Secretary of the Economy, Tatiana Clouthier. At a press conference on Tuesday, following the first meeting of the T-MEC Free Trade Commission with his counterparts from the United States and Canada, the official said the United States has put on the table the case of a company concerned about the investment climate in this sector.

“They didn’t comment in itself investment climate as such, but when we were presented with the issue of electricity and energy reform, it was dealt with broadly, ”Clouthier said at the virtual conference. This, despite the fact that the Canadian delegation issued a statement on Monday in which it said it “reiterated its concerns about the investment climate in Mexico, particularly in the mining and energy sectors.”

“The United States specifically mentioned one company to us and what we commented on was that we needed more information so that our comments could be passed on to the Department of Energy and we sat down with them. and with all the concerns they had so that they could be resolved one by one and find the approach for them to resolve their doubts, ”said Clouthier.“ It was, in terms of the energy part, a part that we present and comment on what is published in the media and which is known to all and all of us in terms that at the moment there is a legal impasse, to call it in a way, and that ‘ is what was left on the table ”.

Regarding the company that filed the complaint, Clouthier said he did not remember the name and added: ‘It is not a concern in itself of the US state against the Mexican state. They simply shared the concern of the company and we commented that with great pleasure we can now approach with very specific questions as to whether it would be with the Department of Energy directly or with Pemex. [la empresa estatal Petróleos Mexicanos] or with both ”.

After the first day of a meeting held Monday with United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Canadian Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade, Mary Ng, the United States has indicated in a statement how Mexico does not respect the treaties and directly called for “an energy policy which respects American investments and which is coherent with the efforts to fight against climate change”.

In addition to attempts by the Mexican president to change the law so that state-owned energy companies do not have to compete with private companies, which contravenes T-MEC, the meeting includes two exposed labor disputes in Mexico as a backdrop. from the United States. The United States and the Mexican Counterattack: The Mexican Ambassador to Washington accused the United States of failing to comply with labor issues and against Mexican farm workers in its territory.

Tai spoke specifically about seven issues that Mexico has failed to comply with, says Ignacio Martínez, coordinator of the Laboratory of Commerce, Economics and Enterprise (LACEN) at UNAM. Environmental obligations, trade in goods made with forced labor, science-based and risk-based regulatory approaches in agriculture, access of fresh American potatoes to all of Mexico, immediate resumption of authorizations for agricultural biotechnology products in Mexico, respectful energy policy US investment and is consistent with efforts to combat climate change and better trade facilitation efforts. “For the Ministry of the Economy, it was a historic meeting on gender where dialogue was privileged and issues related to rules of origin in the automotive sector were addressed,” concluded Martínez.

This disparity occurs because Mexico is at a disadvantage, explains Lila Abed, a political analyst specializing in Mexico’s relations with the United States. They want to underline it in a press release, ”explains the analyst. “This is where we see the pressure from the Biden government and how Mexico is going to have to respond by complying with the new obligations it has.”

For Abed, the letter sent by Mexico to the United States denouncing the non-respect of the T-MEC labor agreements in the agricultural sector, in which Mexican migrants work, should be read as a reaction, rather than action. in favor of labor rights. “In the Free Trade Agreement, the three parties and particularly in the Mexico-United States case, Mexico can also file a complaint for violation of labor rights, but it is very unbalanced”, explains Abed on the phone since. Washington. “What is happening in Mexico are labor rights violations as established in the treaty and I think Mexico’s response is more of a counterattack than a real complaint. I do not know if they would have sent this letter if the United States had not presented these two complaints ”, adds the analyst.

chinese investment

As ministers met on Monday on the first day of work, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador led a ceremony in which he apologized to the Chinese community in the north of the country for a massacre that took place in 1911 “I don’t know if they did it on purpose or not,” Abed adds, “but I think there is certainly concern, not only in Mexico, but in the region and particularly on the part of the States. United, about the rapprochement that not only China has had, but also countries like Russia and Iran ”.

As tensions between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated in April, López Obrador invited the Russian president to Mexico as part of celebrations for 200 years of Mexican independence. For its part, China invested more in Mexico than in any other Latin American country last year, according to UNAM data.

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