Mexico's Amlo finally congratulates Joe Biden for winning US election

David Agren in Mexico City
<span>Photograph: Sáshenka Gutiérrez/EPA</span>
Photograph: Sáshenka Gutiérrez/EPA

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has finally congratulated Joe Biden for winning the US election – becoming one of the last world leaders to do so.

Amlo, as the Mexican leader is known, expressed his congratulations in a somewhat standoffish two-page letter which contrasted with the enthusiastic seven-page missive he sent to Donald Trump after his own election in 2018.

The move came weeks after most other world leaders congratulated the president-elect – and hours after Vladimir Putin officially recognized the US election result.

It leaves Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro as the only leader of a major Latin American country yet to congratulate Biden.

Amlo’s letter thanked Biden for his positive attitudes toward Mexican migrants and his willingness to promote development in southern Mexico and Central America to slow outward migration.

But the Mexican president also sent a subtle warning to Biden, writing: “We have the certainty with you in the [US] presidency it will be possible to continue applying the basic principles of foreign policy established in our constitution; especially that of non-intervention.”

The two-page letter was dated 14 December, but only released on Tuesday – after Amlo’s marathon daily morning press conference, in which he said nothing on the issue.

Amlo has previously defended his refusal to congratulate Biden by saying it adhered to Mexico’s policy of non-intervention in foreign affairs.

But he also appeared to give credence to the US president’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud, saying he was waiting for the resolution of any legal challenges. Trump’s allegations appear to revive Amlo’s own grievances from 2006, when he lost an election that many Mexicans considered was rigged.

“All of their post-election actions point to them feeling Trump’s defeat as their own,” said Bárbara González, a political analyst in Monterrey.

“Having read AMLO’s congratulatory letter to Biden, I can only say it would have been better if he had not congratulated him,” tweeted Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, a former Mexican diplomat. “If someone from this side of the border doesn’t intervene, we will have four icy years in the US-Mexico relationship.”

Despite Trump’s discourteous comments toward Mexican during his improbable rise to power, Amlo – a left-leaning populist and nationalist – and the US president developed an unlikely relationship.

Amlo has spoken of receiving respectful treatment in his dealings with Trump, even as the US president threatened Mexico on trade issues and strong armed it on immigration.

Writing to Trump after his own election in 2018, Amlo presented himself as a fellow populist – and signed off with abrazos (hugs) as opposed to the more formal un saludo (regards) he directed at Biden.

“I am encouraged by the fact that we both know how to fulfill what we say and we have faced adversity successfully,” he told Trump. “We managed to put our voters and citizens at the center and displace the political establishment.

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