There are the facts: neither tariffs nor a “safe third country”, highlights Ebrard

Alonso Urrutia and Nestor Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, February 15, 2023, p. 9

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came out yesterday to criticize Martha Bárcena, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, against Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and said that the diplomat has no foundation in his affirmations, although he exerts his right to demonstrate.

In yesterday’s conference, there was a question about whether Bárcena was already defined by conservatism. Lopez Obrador responded: Well, I think so, I think he’s in that block, not with us.

Ebrard established his position in the face of Bárcena’s criticism of a negotiation with the United States, at the dawn of the six-year term, when President Donald Trump threatened Mexico with imposing tariffs.

He stressed that The former ambassador has devoted herself, since she left office, to slandering me everywhere she could. It’s an obsessive grudge.

The Secretary of Foreign Relations considered that Mexico achieved the two objectives that were set in that negotiation: to prevent the imposition of tariffs and that it be forced to be safe third country for undocumented migrants.

The foreign minister emphasized that he reported every step in the negotiations. I would go out to inform President López Obrador of each step we were taking, there was never a decision or action that I took hiding information from the President. I would not be chancellor right now. But we also report it to the Senate. Before I went to the United States, I remind you, I went to the Senate of the Republic and told the senators.

Although the original question was addressed to Ebrard, the President responded in the first instance by disqualifying the veracity of Bárcena’s version. And who interviewed her, as you yourself are pointing out, Leon Krauze, well he is our enemy. Adversary, then, not to exaggerate.

Later, in response to a question off the microphone, the president denied that he was sorry for having appointed the former ambassador to the post. But he immediately added: She is saying things that are not true, since it is nothing more than exercising the right of reply, but with her and with whoever.

López Obrador affirmed that even within the Mexican foreign service there is a very conservative sector, which at the time never did anything to question the operation Fast and Furiousthrough which a United States agency introduced weapons to Mexico or when the deportations of migrants increased in the government of Barack Obama.

The foreign minister explained his actions during that period, when the United States government wanted to force Mexico to go safe third country in exchange for not imposing tariffs.

“What was achieved at the end of this? We didn’t have the tariffs and we didn’t have the ‘safe third country,’” Ebrard said. He added that, on the other hand, Bárcena “had already said yes to this ‘safe third country’ treaty, as long as it was like in Turkey”, that is, that there was a payment involved.

I never trusted her for thatsaid the chancellor. And it’s good that I didn’t have it, because look at what she’s saying right now and the ingratitude towards the government that appointed her ambassador in Washington, which is the most important embassy in Mexico..

Ebrard expressed his satisfaction with the achievements of that time, in very adverse conditions for the López Obrador government, for which Mexico was able to come out ahead. The facts are there, I’m not saying it to defend my position.