Fausto Pretelin Muñoz de Cote is a Mexican author, international relations expert, and political columnist known for his incisive analysis of global affairs and Mexican foreign policy. With a background in diplomacy and academia, Pretelin has contributed to leading publications such as El Economista, El Universal, and Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica. His writing often explores the intersection of geopolitics, democracy, and media, offering critical perspectives on international institutions and Latin America’s role in the global landscape. Through his books and columns, Pretelin has established himself as a prominent voice in shaping public discourse on Mexico’s place in a rapidly changing world.
The following is a translation of his latest column on “El Economista”:
Time is one of the arenas where evolution is staged. It seems that Mexican foreign policy is substantially immutable in the face of time.
“Mexican foreign policy has been inward-looking and has aimed to protect the country from external pressures, rather than expand its sphere of influence.”
Alan Riding wrote this in 1984. His book, Distant Neighbors, condenses his vision into a kind of photographic lens. Riding was a correspondent for The New York Times in Mexico. The Spanish edition of the book celebrates its 40th anniversary, and the commemorative edition features a prologue by Jorge Castañeda (Ariel/Planeta publishing house).
Today marks the beginning of the most important week of the year at the United Nations, and it may become the most important in recent years. The war in Ukraine and the genocide in the Gaza Strip will be the main topics during the UN General Assembly.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will not travel to the United Nations.
“His policy toward the rest of the world has been shaped by his relationship with Washington,” Riding wrote more than 40 years ago.
“Issues between East and West, and even the problems of the Third World, seemed unimportant to him. Mexico viewed the world as a defense against US intervention, and ventured out into the world to demonstrate its independence from Washington.”
Riding wrote Distant Neighbors without knowing that the book would become a compendium of prophecies.
Alan Riding was born in Brazil to British parents. He trained as an economist and later as a lawyer before choosing journalism. He lived in Mexico for 13 years, where he was a correspondent for The Financial Times, The Economist, and then The New York Times.
Reading Distant Neighbors chills the veins and sometimes lowers the heart rate: Mexican foreign policy is immutable.
There have been six-year terms of greater openness to the world (that of Salinas de Gortari with NAFTA) and others where the president in office raffled off the presidential plane (AMLO) as a performance to position foreign policy as an activity of indolent millionaires.
In Spanish and English, we heard the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, psychiatrist Juan Ramón de la Fuente, during a conference with Marco Rubio, appeal to the “principles of Mexican foreign policy.”
About them, Riding wrote four decades ago: “The principles, which sound very good and guide Mexico’s foreign policy—respect for national sovereignty (…) self-determination—(…) are something more than legal abstractions. They represent Mexico’s main guarantee that its history will not be repeated, and when applied to other countries exposed to intervention, they are thought to protect Mexico.”
Each of the words in the previous paragraphs has not lost its validity. It seems that Alan Riding vacuum-packed them so that, upon releasing them in 2025, they would remain fresh.
“Mexico accepts its alignment with Washington in any confrontation with Moscow, but refuses to view Latin America’s problems in the context of East and West,” writes Riding.
Now, Beijing has been added to Moscow. Mexico’s alignment with Washington contemplates imposing tariffs.
Riding recalls that Díaz Ordaz met several times with Nixon and Johnson, but did not travel beyond Washington. AMLO traveled abroad for only 16 days during his six-year term, eight of them to the United States.
President Sheinbaum decided not to travel to the UN, nor will she travel to Korea for the APEC Summit, where Trump and Xi Jinping will meet.
“Mexico ignored the rest of the world, just as the world ignored Mexico,” wrote Riding.
By Fausto Pretelin Muñoz de Cote
Source: El Economista
