Mexico to ‘pause’ relationship with US embassy after judicial reform comments

The Mexican government has paused its relationship with the US embassy in the country, the nation’s president said on Tuesday, after the US ambassador criticized a proposed judicial reform backed by the leader.

“There is a pause,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a press conference, clarifying the freeze was just with the embassy and not with the United States as a whole.

Last week Ambassador Ken Salazar labeled the reform, which proposes that judges be elected by popular vote, a “major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.”

He also cautioned of the potential risk to the US-Mexico trade relationship. The countries are each other’s largest trade partners.

Canada’s ambassador to Mexico also warned of investment concerns.

The pause in relationship with the US embassy is “because (the ambassador) is looking to talk with us,” Lopez Obrador said. “It’s not personal, we’ve had a good, constructive relationship.”

Salazar had said he was open to speaking with Mexican government leaders to discuss different models for judicial representation.

Lopez Obrador in recent days has decried the critique as disrespectful and interventionist.