EL PASO, Texas — A trickle of congratulations for President-elect Joe Biden has turned into a steady stream, but the leader of the United States' top trading partner has yet to pick up the phone.
Mexico's populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said over the weekend that the U.S. electoral process hasn't ended and Mexico would wait for the various legal challenges announced by President Donald J. Trump to be resolved before congratulating the winner.
"With regard to the U.S. election, we are going to wait until all the legal matters have been resolved," said Lopez Obrador, commonly known as AMLO. "I can't congratulate one candidate or the other. I want to wait until the electoral process is over."
It's an inauspicious start for an AMLO-Biden relationship already muddied by the fact that Mexico's leader snubbed the Democratic presidential nominee in July when he flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with Trump. With 2,000 miles of border between them and a list of shared weighty bilateral issues — like trade, immigration and the border wall — the bonds between the U.S. and Mexico are a top priority. And they're fragile.
"My initial reaction is it seems like Stockholm syndrome, but I don't think that's the actual answer," said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, and author of "Vanishing Frontiers." "I think the actual answer is a mixture of wanting to be cautious in his relationship with President Trump, given how many interests there are. And I think there is also a bit of his own memory of an election that he feels was stolen from him back in 2006."
Lopez Obrador has long held a grudge against other governments, including the U.S., for rushing to recognize the electoral victory of his former opponent Mexican President Felipe Calderon in 2006, without waiting for a final legal outcome.
In protest, Lopez Obrador mocked the country's fledgling institutions. "The hell with them," he said and blocked Mexico City's main artery, Reforma Avenue, for weeks, eventually setting up what he called his own "legitimate" shadow government, stubbornly declaring victory, repeatedly, amid cries of "fraud."
A senior Mexican government official who asked not to be named because of a lack of authorization to speak defended Lopez Obrador's decision, calling it a move to save Mexico from further being bullied by Trump in his last days in office. Another government official who also asked not to be named because of a lack of authorization to speak called the move "embarrassing," noting that every0ne from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump confidant, to Biden critic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had congratulated the new president-elect.
Under Trump, Mexico became, in Lopez Obrador's own words, a "pinata" and its border with the U.S. became ground zero for the Trump administration's draconian immigration policies. Many believe pressure from Trump led Lopez Obrador to deploy the Mexican national guard in a crackdown on Central American migrants. And Trump's Remain in Mexico policy has turned cities like Tijuana, Reynosa and Ciudad Juarez into prolonged waiting areas for migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.
And that's just immigration.
Trump repeatedly threatened to throw a monkey wrench into the $600 billion trade relationship between the two nations by raising tariffs. He also threatened to shut down the border, a move that would have led to economic devastation for the region.
Observers say moving quickly to build new bonds with Biden is critical.
"Lopez Obrador is using very poor judgment, as he has unfortunately every step of the way with Donald Trump," said U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas. "President-elect Joe Biden won this election. There really is very little doubt, except among Trump and his enablers that Biden is going to be our president."
With COVID-19 raging on both sides of the border, Escobar and other leaders have pressed for a binational approach to deal with the virus. El Paso, which is in Escobar's district, is dealing with one of the worst outbreaks in the country, with a record 1,919 cases reported Monday and 666 deaths. Mexico has recorded 95,027 COVID-19 deaths, 1,525 of them across the border in Ciudad Juarez.
Despite the "rocky start" on Lopez Obrador's part, Shannon O'Neil, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the two countries will eventually move forward together, noting geography, history and destiny.
"Even without any personal bonhomie expect much broader and deeper bilateral discussions to begin on security, environment, labor issues, human rights, corruption, and investor rights and protections," said O'Neil, author of "Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States and the Road Ahead." "After four years of an obsession with just migration, the true broad and deep nature of the U.S.-Mexico relationship will again emerge."
Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, called Lopez Obrador's slow start with Biden "inartful. A fumble of sorts. But a big deal? I don't think so.... Truth is, the president-elect's inbox is full of far more pressing matters than AMLO's unforced errors."
But Jesus Velasco, an expert on U.S. Mexico relations at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, isn't quite sure there won't be a price to pay, at least initially.
"The problem is that the decision of not praising Biden's triumph yet will, at least in the beginning, lead to an unpleasant bilateral relation, that will complicate Mexico's relationship with its main trade partner," Velasco said. "However, AMLO's insensibility will not modify the structural relationship."
Many of Lopez Obrador's critics are still fuming over Lopez Obrador's first — and so far only — trip abroad as president to meet with Trump as they ushered in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who also congratulated Biden, skipped the meeting. Lopez Obrador chose not to meet with Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who played a key role passing the trade pact. Standing next to Trump, Lopez Obrador thanked the president for his "kindness" and "respect."
For Biden, such superlatives will have to wait.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, wrote in Spanish and English in his Twitter account that Lopez Obrador's unwillingness to congratulate Biden represents a "stunning diplomatic failure" at a time when the incoming Biden administration is "looking to usher in a new era of friendship and cooperation with Mexico."
