Editor's note:
Jorge G. Castañeda is a CNN contributor.
He was Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico from 2000 to 2003. He is currently a professor at New York University and his most recent book, “America Through Foreign Eyes,” was published by Oxford UniversityPress in 2020. The views expressed in this commentary are solely from the author.
You can find more opinion pieces at CNNe.com/opinion.
(CNN Spanish) --
The request for consultations on the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC) by these last two countries for alleged violations by Mexico opens a new stage in relations between this country and the United States .
During a quarter of a century of validity of the previous FTA, the United States never invoked the dispute settlement mechanisms provided for therein.
It also introduces a new decisive factor in the management of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the final third of his term.
This is one of the most important events in the Government of the so-called Fourth Transformation.
In short, Ottawa and Washington argue that the Government of López Obrador has violated several provisions of the T-MEC in terms of energy, both in relation to hydrocarbons and electricity.
What is the T-MEC and what do Mexico, the United States and Canada trade?
They invoke chapters 2, 14 and 22 of the agreement, and maintain that Mexico has not complied with several of its sections.
Among them are the equal treatment of partners and nationals, equal treatment even with state monopolies, and granting treatment to the United States and Canada in matters of energy no less favorable than that which Mexico grants to other countries.
They refer to the agreement that Mexico signed with the European Union in 1998 and the new TPP, called CPTPP, with the Pacific countries.
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López Obrador has responded that he always insisted that a chapter be included in the treaty – the eighth chapter – that guaranteed Mexican dominance over hydrocarbon resources and that electricity is produced mostly with hydrocarbons.
Therefore, he considers that the items summoned by his partners are not applicable to energy.
Beyond the technical discussion, which is complex and detailed, if the three countries do not agree within 75 days, two panels of three experts each will be created to arbitrate.
If the decision is contrary to Mexico, the governments of the United States and Canada may impose tariffs for an amount equivalent to the investments affected by the non-compliance with the treaty, an amount that can amount to up to US$ 30,000 million.
They would probably apply to the most vulnerable sectors of the Mexican economy and that involve the most people: export agriculture, some manufacturing, beer production, etc.
The vast majority of experts in trade agreements, as well as the previous negotiators of the agreement by Mexico and the United States, consider that Mexico will lose the arbitration if the three countries do not reach an agreement before.
What López Obrador argues, namely that there was a carve-out or exclusion of the energy sector in the T-MEC, is simply not justified or corroborated in any text of the document signed in 2019 by López Obrador himself.
Unless otherwise stipulated, the "transversal" articles –among them, 2, 14 and 22– apply to all sectors of the economy, without exception.
Nowhere in the treaty does a contrary provision appear.
Until the decision of the Trade Representative of the Biden administration to request consultations, the current Democratic government had followed a very clear - and controversial - course in its relationship with Mexico.
In a few words, in exchange for López Obrador preventing, as far as possible, the arrival of migratory flows from other countries to the border between Mexico and the United States, and for those who arrived at said border to remain on the Mexican side awaiting his hearings, Biden would turn a blind eye to everything else.
He resisted all the pressures, pleas, suggestions and admonitions from various sectors of US society to publicly formulate a long list of claims against López Obrador.
This list included, of course, investments in energy and transgenics, but also the politicization of justice in Mexico, the murder of journalists and attacks on intellectuals, violations of the human rights of migrants, non-compliance with the Agreement of Paris and the scant Mexican cooperation in combating climate change and fentanyl trafficking, sympathy with the dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, little solidarity with Ukraine, and even the somewhat absurd gestures of the Mexican president, such as asking that Washington desist from persecuting Julian Assange.
All these claims were expressed by senators and congressmen, by business associations or lobbies, by activists for the environment, for immigrants, for human rights and by NGOs of all kinds.
Biden chose to ignore them, even during López Obrador's latest visit to Washington, during which the Mexican president spent 31 minutes of press time in the Oval Office in an unusual soliloquy lecturing Biden on a thousand and one issues.
Not even the disagreement over US participation – or not – in the capture of Rafael Caro Quintero led Biden to disheveled in front of López Obrador.
All that changed with the decision to request consultations on the T-MEC.
Either Biden himself got fed up with so much Mexican provocation or his national security team, which coordinates all these issues, no longer resisted the pressure, or Washington finally understood that the main immigration threat to the United States comes from the economic disorder in Mexico. , created by the public policies of López Obrador, or a combination of all these explanations finally came together to put an end to the previous position.
The fact is that we have gone from a stage of smiles and pats on the back to one of confrontation, in the area that matters most: investment, the economy, tariffs and institutional procedures, which are no longer discretionary.
For the last biennium of López Obrador, the American redefinition presents numerous challenges.
You don't have much room for manoeuvre.
For him, energy, that is, Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission, are an emblematic matter, of life or death.
Can't back down.
Simultaneously, however, launching a crusade against the United States and against all those in Mexico, Canada and even in the European Union who disagree with it, entails a serious danger.
The Mexican economy remains stagnant, investment decreases, violence does not stop, and the presidential succession draws near.
Add to these challenges a confrontation with your neighbor is not anything.
You should either back down, accept that you were misled by your negotiators in 2019 or that you didn't fully understand what you signed up for.
It is unlikely that this will happen.
A storm is coming, not to say a perfect storm.