Editor’s note: An uncomfortable week for Sheinbaum’s vision of Mexican sovereignty

by Andrew Law, editor and founder.

This week a video circulated on social media of former Mexican president Felipe Calderón decrying the country’s freshly implemented judicial reform at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

In it, Calderón called MORENA’s reform a “demolition project” that had likely rendered free elections a thing of the past. What seemed to irritate President Claudia Sheinbaum most, however, was Calderón’s suggestion that former US ambassador Ken Salazar should have intervened. Sheinbaum did not hold back at her morning press conference: “It's outrageous, there's no other word for it. He goes to the United States to say that the American ambassador should have intervened to prevent the judicial reform from passing. Aside from being spurious, he's a traitor.”

Sheinbaum rarely misses a chance to stress Mexico’s sovereignty in her dealings with Washington. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited last week to highlight security cooperation, the first line of the joint statement stressed respect for sovereignty, echoing…