By KELIN DILLON
In a new interview conducted by Mexican daily newspaper El Financiero, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta S. Jacobson characterized the presently contentious relationship between Mexico and the United States as one “like a family,” while highlighting Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) propensity toward making “noise” around the neighboring trade partners’ relations.
According to Jacobson, the importance of the two nations’ mutually beneficial relationship will always see Mexico and the United States resolve any issues between each other, despite often having differing positions on certain matters.
“When you put the whole relationship in context, it’s vitally important,” said Jacobson at the time. “It has good and bad moments, but in the end, we work together because you can’t divorce your family, and you can’t divorce a neighbor with whom you share so many things.”
The diplomat went on to comment on López Obrador’s role in the current status of U.S.-Mexico relations, with Jacobson claiming that she does not always understand the Mexican executive’s positions when examined in the broader context of the neighboring countries’ symbiotic relationship.
“(There have been moments like) invitations toward leaders of Cuba or Venezuela, comments about the Statue of Liberty and human rights situations,” said Jacobson. “That seems to create a lot of ‘noise’ in the relationship to me.”
“He told me before he was elected that he considered the relationship to be of the utmost importance,” added Jacobson. “I hope he continues to believe it.”
However, Jacobson said that the Biden administration is still committed toward achieving concrete results and collaborative progress with Mexico regardless of any public noise surrounding the two countries’ relationship.
Jacobson also provided insight into some of the United States’ and Mexico’s most important bilateral issues – such as security and environmental matters – while urging both sides to drop the “blame game” against each other.
“Mexico sometimes argues that the United States must do more to stop weapons from crossing the border, and the United States says that Mexico must do more to stop drug trafficking,” revealed the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico. “Both sides are right, but when you have a situation where you have over 100,000 overdose deaths in the United States and homicides in Mexico, most of them related to drug trafficking, it seems to me that those arguments contribute nothing to stopping the violence.”