After the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, will support the energetic reform of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal published this Sunday a column de Mary Anastasia O’Grady, in which he criticized the “bad judgment” of the ambassador and suggested firing him.
On Thursday, after meeting with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Gutierrez Luna, and parliamentary leaders of the PRI and Morena, Salazar pointed out that the laws on energy “have to be reviewed and reformed, because experience does not provide great learning over time, does it?
“So, Mexico has already had this law since 2013. The President Lopez Obrador You’re right when you say: ‘We’re going to make changes for the best of the people,’ right? So, this process that exists now, that the President has proposed, the reasons for it must be understood”.
A day later, López Obrador thanked Salazar for his words. “Very good, Ken.” He described the ambassador as a “practical man” and stressed that the government of the US president, Joe Biden, has been “very respectful” on the issue of energy reform.
Salazar’s words did not sit well with various US sectors critical of a reform that raises concerns about foreign participation in the electric sector.
Salazar himself, on Friday, seemed to rectify via Twitter. “One of my main priorities in Mexico is to see investors and american companies, so that there is a fair and even floor. The United States respects the sovereignty of Mexico and trusts that Mexico will fulfill the commitments acquired under the T-MEC when considering changes to the energy sector”.
But in his Sunday column The Anericas, O’Grady said that “there is no way to exaggerate Mr. Salazar’s poor judgment. It’s about the constitutional reforms to Mexico’s energy laws, proposed in September by AMLO – as the president is known – and pending approval in the Mexican Congress.
“The reforms directly contravene the country’s commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC or USMCA, as it is known in English) to ensure open markets and competitive and equitable treatment to all parties, foreign and domestic.
The columnist recalled that last month, the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, traveled to Mexico City to discuss bilateral issues with Mr. López Obrador and that despite the fact that the Mexican Secretary of Energy, Dew Nahle, said that the United States did not express any concern about the issue of energy reform, Granholm made it clear that they were transmitted, “expressly, real concerns for the potential negative impact of the energy reforms proposed by Mexico on private investment in the United States.
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He also said such reforms “could hamper joint efforts by the United States and Mexico on clean energy and climate.”
Granholm made it all very clear, O’Grady said in his column, “until Mr. Salazar decided to side with AMLO, telling reporters on Thursday that Mr. López Obrador ‘is right.'” Regarding the subsequent statements on Twitter, the columnist pointed out that “the damage is done”.
In the text, titled:A United States ambassador takes the side of Mexico”, recalled that the energy reform “would force private electricity generators to sell to the state Federal electricity commission, which would set prices as the sole buyer and would control dispatch to all consumers, giving it 100% market power”, which with it the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Hydrocarbons Commission, which guarantee “competition and non-competition”. discrimination in the market”, would be eliminated.
“Since equal treatment of investors before the law is not guaranteed, the capital would be depleted. But that doesn’t matter to AMLO. Its objective is to consolidate power so that the government can centrally plan and control the Energetic industry of Mexico and the economy that depends on it,” said O’Grady, who argued that “sovereignty over energy does not give Mexico the right to tilt the playing field against non-state investors.”
In fact, he considered, “Mexico is already violating the rights of american energy companies. It has confiscated storage terminals and targeted private power generation companies for permit cancellation, including low-cost renewables.
“In the past week, Bloomberg Line reported that the Ministry of Energy “did not renew 11 fuel import permits” as of this month. The affected companies are BP, Glencore and Ford.”
Ambassador Salazar, he complained, appears not to have read requests for help from american legislators to the Biden administration to pressure Mexico on the issue, nor the responses issued by both Granholm and the Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, and the United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, noting that “we understand and share your concerns regarding Mexico’s proposed constitutional reforms and recent actions affecting US companies and investors in the energy sector.”
Mexico, denounced O’Grady, “is immersed in an assault on the North American energy market a key component of the USMCA and of development on both sides of the border.” In that sense, he explained that the United States “has the obligation to call for formal consultations. Mexico’s most important trading partner needs to understand where AMLO is headed with his energy reforms and the related discrimination already taking place. He should warn the Mexican president that violations of the trade agreement will have consequences, including painful retaliation.”
On Salazar, O’Grady concluded: “Joe Biden should find him a new job.”
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