By RICARDO CASTILLO

Roberta’s Back

In May 2018, then-outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson made a prediction, saying that she was not saying goodbye but rather “so long.”

On Tuesday, March 23, Jacobson kept her promise and returned to Mexico, this time as U.S. President Joe Biden’s southern border affairs representative.

Jacobson led a committee of U.S. officials in talks with Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard regarding how best to curb the seemingly endless flow of Central American migrants from reaching the U.S. border with Mexico.

Jacobson apparently requested the use of Mexico’s National Guard again, just the way former U.S. President Donald Trump used arm-twisting threats such as slapping Mexico with a 25 percent tariff on exports if President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) did nothing to stop the flow.

At that time, López Obrador responded by stationing 27,000 armed National Guard officers on the Guatemala and Belize borders.

No doubt, the talks also included how to proceed in developing economically the northern Central American triangle formed by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which Mexico considers the crux of the migration problem.

Rail Companies Merge

A $29 billion merger was struck between rail giants Canadian Pacific Railways and Kansas City Southern Industries (KCSI) to link up existing railroads from Mexico to Canada.

The objective of the joint venture is to create 20,000-plus miles of railroads from Lázaro Cárdenas port in the Mexican Pacific state of Michoácan all the way to St. John, New Brunswick, on the north Atlantic.

The move is being touted by the CEOs of both companies — Keith Creel of Canadian Pacific and Patrick Ottensmeyer of KCSI — as history-making and another step toward consolidating North America as the world’s finest trading bloc under the United States- Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

For the past 20 years, KCSI has operated the Lázaro Cárdenas-Laredo rail line, which now represent half of KCSI’s income.

The company coming out of the new merger will be called CPKC.

Morena Vs the INE

A recent decision made by Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE) to curtail the number of representatives a political party may have at the Chamber of Deputies has been challenged at the Electoral Tribunal by the majority National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party.

Morena President Mario Delgado said the INE mandate is a ploy by INE President Lorenzo Córdova and a second INE official, Ciro Murayama, to prevent Morena from having the upper hand in the vote count.

Delgado claimed that there were “irregularities” in the way the decision was made to curtail Morena from having a larger number of deputies through the pluri-nominal system, which allots seats in Congress according to the number of votes obtained in the overall elections.

By a 9-to-2 majority vote, the INE councilors voted against Morena being classified as a majority party while Morena upheld the concept that there is no obstacle to them being such, so that political parties in coalition, through an agreement, can propose candidates any way they see fit.

The ball is now in the Electoral Tribunal’s court.

New AmCham Leader

The American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico (AmCham) on Monday, March 22, elected Vladimiro de la Mora as its new president for the 2021-2022 period.

De la Mora ran for the post on a five-priorities program that included helping the national economic recovery, increasing bilateral U.S.-Mexican trade, pushing for further trust for U.S. investors in Mexico and promoting energy integration across North American. “We need to assure Mexico has the essentials, such as respect for the rule of law in all manners and juridical certainty,” De la Mora said on accepting the post.

“It is indispensable to continue being a trustworthy partner, attractive and safe for investments.” De la Mora is the president and director general of GE México.

…March 24, 2021