Argentina's President-Elect Chooses Mexico for His First Foreign Trip
By early next week, Argentina's President-elect Alberto Fernández could finally get his loawaited photo op with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whom he sees as a potential partner in a region with a strong right-wing presence.
Presidents like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro -who said Argentina made the wrong choice in electing him-, Chile's Sebastián Piñera, and Colombia's Ivan Duque will not be natural allies to Fernández.
Fernández had attempted to schedule a meeting with AMLO after sweeping the August primaries, but the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs informed him that they preferred to wait until he was elected president, as revealed by LPO. In order to prevent any friction with Donald Trump, who supported the re-election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina.
Fernández sees in AMLO the possible leader of the center-left in Latin America, a club that would also include the president of Bolivia Evo Morales and the future president of Uruguay, in the event of a victory by the Frente Amplio in the upcoming second round of the election. The president-elect finds strong similarities, such as AMLO's policy of non-interference in the Venezuelan crisis.
The reality is that AMLO is not interested in regional leadership. His policy is not to travel abroad, he has outsourced those responsibilities to Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón.
Months ago, the newly-elected Governor of Provincia de Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, visited Mexico City to meet with several members of Morena, López Obrador's party, even though he did not get his photo with the Mexican President either. The left-wing of López Obrador's government has closed ties to Cristina Kirchner's inner circle. For instance, the President of the Mexican Senate, Martí Bartres, and AMLO's secretaries of Labor, Luisa María Alcalde; of the Public Function, Irma Sandoval; and above all, Secretary of the Interior and former Supreme Court Justice Olga Sánchez Cordero.
Sandoval is married to Mexican-American journalist John Ackerman, who was behind Kicillof's visit to the Mexican capital. Alcalde is the daughter of Bertha Luján, president of the Morena party Congress.
Alberto Fernández's most important link with Mexico is Mexican-French businessman Xavier Cazaubón, who is not related to influential Foreign Secretary Ebrard Casaubón, but is a close friend of him.