Claudia Guerrero/Reform Agency
Saturday, January 14, 2023 | 12:53
Mexico City- Thanks to previous negotiations, Mexico did not receive public complaints about its energy policy during the X Summit of North American Leaders, which took place this week in Mexico City.
Although the United States and Canada began consultations on the management of the sector since July 2022, the issue was not part of the agenda in the trilateral meeting of the presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico), Joe Biden (United States) and Justin Trudeau ( Canada).
What did happen was that the two trading partners of Mexico addressed the issue of clean energy, as a priority issue in closing the works, unlike the Mexican President, who did not even mention it.
On the third day of meetings, the issue finally came to the table, but it was during a private meeting between López Obrador and Trudeau.
The approach was known because the Tabasco himself accepted that the Prime Minister had expressed his concerns about Mexican energy policy and the possible effects on Canadian companies that have invested millions of dollars in the country for the production of clean energy.
In response, AMLO offered to meet personally with the dissatisfied businessmen who have accused the Government of Mexico of favoring the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), violating provisions contemplated in the T-MEC.
This is not the first time that the Tabasco native has applied this strategy to deal with problems with business partners over the management of the energy sector.
In June of last year, he spent three weeks personally lobbying 17 major US companies that also had complaints and concerns on the same issue.
Almost every afternoon, the President received directors and executives from North American companies at the National Palace and seated them at his table.
The investors were then accompanied by the United States Ambassador, Ken Salazar, and López Obrador brought to the same table the members of his economic and energy cabinet and the heads of Pemex and the CFE.
Those talks were praised by the United States and AMLO even presented them in reports as one more achievement of his government.
In the framework of the Leaders’ Summit, he used the same strategy to resolve an uncomfortable and thorny issue that, in any case, will continue its legal course within the framework of the T-MEC instruments, either through consultations or even in a dispute panel.
It will be seen if AMLO reaches an agreement as he did, also, in August 2019, with national and foreign companies that received contracts in previous governments for the construction of gas pipelines and with whom he negotiated contract terminations, through a “discount “of 4 thousand 500 million dollars.
On that occasion, the President established a negotiating table with the idea of reducing costs and, at the same time, avoiding international legal processes, acknowledging that “a bad arrangement is better than a good lawsuit.”
