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was in Alamosa, Colorado, in 1955. He has extensive political experience. He was attorney general of his home state from 1999 to 2005. In that position he placed special emphasis on the pursuit of fugitives. Upon finishing his term in Colorado, he became the first US senator of Hispanic origin. He served as Secretary of the Interior, from 2009 to 2013, during the presidency of Barack Obama. Ken Salazar promised to restore the integrity of the Ministry of the Interior, who had become too friendly with business during the Bush era
but according to Alan Prendergast, it did not comply: it granted hundreds of permits with special categories
for oil exploration in deep waters (Salazar is spinning the Deepwater Horizon debacle
, Westword5/13/10). British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon platform was one of the beneficiaries. On April 10, 2010, after receiving authorization from Salazar, an explosion on the platform killed 11 workers, caused a flash visible 64 kilometers away and caused an oil spill – according to Greenpeace – that generated a 210-kilometer-long stain. and 110 kilometers wide in the Gulf of Mexico. Although he usually presents himself as an environmentalist and defender of clean energy (this is how he justifies his involvement in the Mayan Train), as Secretary of the Interior, he granted permits to the Shell company to exploit oil in the Arctic.
He presented his credentials as US ambassador to Mexico on 9/14/21. There he has developed frenetic activity aimed at re-functionalizing the Mexican territory in accordance with the interests of the United States. For example, on March 28, 2024, he celebrated his country’s new partnership with Mexico for semiconductor manufacturing, which aims to create supply chains under the Chip Law. According to the White House, this law proposes American supremacy in a technology which includes everything from appliances to defense systems
and will manufacture essential components for US Defense, such as the zetta scale supercomputer, quantum information technologies and advanced communication. The inclusion of Mexico in the supply chains required by the Chip Law will make it almost impossible to distinguish whether the industries that settle here will produce products for the civilian industry or will manufacture components for the military industrial complex destined for the arms race against China.
The ambassador has carried out unusual activities. For example, his support for the misnamed Mayan Train project. The diplomat has formally held at least seven meetings with the five governors of the states through which the railway passes. The last one was held on April 18, 2023 and, according to the American, its purpose was to discuss private investments, community development, migration, security and renewable energies. The meetings were attended, he added, by representatives of the US Chamber of Commerce.
Defender of frackingpersonifies American interference. On March 20, 2023, he was at the meeting in which US congressmen demanded that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador address a letter to President Xi Jinping. Two days later, President López Obrador addressed a letter to the President of China requesting, for humanitarian reasons, that he take measures to stop shipments of fentanyl, in a context in which “American legislators have blamed Mexico for the misfortune they suffer in their country for the consumption of fentanyl… they have even gone so far as to say… that they could present an initiative to their Congress for the US armed forces to invade our territory.”
The statements of Brian Nichols, Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, confirm that, in his interventionist statements, the ambassador did not act motu proprio. I consider the strangeness regarding the ambassador’s behavior and the demand for respect for our sovereignty to be correct. It is wise to limit what an ambassador can or cannot do. However, I think we should consider Salazar as an avatar of dependency, in the sense that after him, other envoys with similar tasks will come. The further the subordinate integration of the Mexican economy into the United States advances, the more that country’s capacity to exert pressure will increase, reduce our room for maneuver and threaten our national power. We must seriously question the naturalization of nearshoring and economic integration with the US. I believe that we must seriously study authors like Ruy Mauro Marini and his theory on the reasons for the emergence and reproduction of dependent capitalism. As a society, government and State, we must take very seriously the task of gradually dismantling our vulnerability and strengthening our sovereignty.
* Doctor in history and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM
