Back at work early Friday morning after his July 8 meetings with President Trump in Washington, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) held his regular early morning press conference in Mexico City yesterday to report back on his trip. “The visit was a success and very beneficial for our people.… We have the possibility of initiating a new stage in the political relationship with the United States and we are going to continue with that. We do not want quarrels, we do not want confrontation; we want to seek agreement.”
AMLO then stressed the critical historical theme which shaped the entire summit: “The heroes of that nation [the U.S.] always sought to have a relationship with Mexico based on respect.” As in the Rose Garden speeches by both AMLO and Trump, the Mexican President returned to the Lincoln-Juárez relationship, as well as two other key moments: “George Washington, the founding father of the United States, said that nations should not take advantage of the misfortune of other peoples. Then the extraordinary relationship of President Lincoln with President Juárez through our foreign minister, one of Mexico’s best diplomats, Matias Romero. President Lincoln never recognized [Emperor] Maximillian, he never accepted the French intervention, he always maintained relations with the government of President Juárez. That helped us.
“More recently, at the time of the oil expropriation, the same thing. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood, he realized why that act of sovereignty, of patriotism by General Cárdenas regarding the nationalization and the expropriation of foreign oil companies, and there is understanding. That helped a lot.”
