Mexico rolled out the red carpet for Cuba’s dictator, but is unlikely to lead a leftist bloc | Opinion

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s growing love affair with Cuba’s dictatorship and his stint as host this weekend of a leftist-supported summit of Latin American leaders is fueling speculation that Mexico may become the new leader of a Latin American leftist bloc.

López Obrador hosted Cuba’s dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel as a special guest to speak at the Sept. 16 ceremonies for the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s independence. As I wrote in my most recent column, that was a slap in the face of democracy, human rights and Mexico’s dignity.

And over the weekend, Mexico hosted the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which López Obrador earlier had said would seek to replace or radically transform the Washington-based Organization of American States. López Obrador suggested that the OAS is U.S. “puppet” and should be replaced by a more-independent regional alliance.

But there’s no money nor political strength among Latin America’s leftist governments to revive late Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez’s drive for a regional “anti-imperialist” bloc, regardless of whether it is led by Mexico or by any other country.

Mexico depends on the United States for almost 80% of its exports and for more than $40 billion a year in U.S. family remittances, one of its biggest income sources. That alone would make it hard for Mexico to seriously challenge U.S. policies in the region.

In addition, Mexico’s rotating presidency of CELAC, a regional bloc that has excluded the United States and calls for an end to Washington’s trade embargo on Cuba, ends in a few months. And other leftist-ruled countries in the region are either bankrupt or too politically divided to lead any regional bloc.

Unlike what happened in the 2000s when oil prices were at all-time highs and Venezuela’s Chavez led a powerful leftist alliance, that country is going through its worst economic and humanitarian crisis in recent history; Brazil — the region’s largest country — has veered to the far right; and Argentina’s left-of-center government is going through a major political crisis.

At the last minute, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez canceled his trip to Mexico for the Sept. 18 CELAC summit, after a public fight with his powerful vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She has blamed Fernandez for their party’s huge electoral loss in the Sept. 11 primary elections.

But Mexico was forced to drastically tone down its plan to seek a CELAC resolution to replace the OAS after failing to get the support from most Latin American countries. Only Venezuela — whose leader, NIcolas Maduro, showed up at the summit — Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia supported Mexico’s proposal to disband or replace the OAS.

The idea probably was a non-starter, because CELAC exists mostly on paper. It has no headquarters, no staff and no funding. It doesn’t include Brazil, Canada or the United States — some of the hemisphere’s most powerful players.

“CELAC is a pipe dream, an empty suit,” former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda told me.

By comparison, for good or ill, the OAS has an $80 million annual budget, a staff of 400 people, an Inter-American Court of Human Rights based in Costa Rica and several agencies. It would take years, if not decades, to replace these institutions.

López Obrador most likely stepped up his pro-Cuba, pro-CELAC rhetoric for political reasons domestically. As Castañeda noted in a Nexos magazine article, the Mexican president is an old-guard leftist who has come out of the closet on Cuba and who wants to score points with his leftist base at home.

Of course, we can’t rule out the emergence of a leftist bloc of Latin American nations in the future. The dream of many admirers of Cuba’s dictatorship is that, following the recent victory of far left President Pedro Castillo in Peru, Chile will elect a leftist leader in its Nov. 21 presidential elections, Brazil and Colombia will elect leftist candidates in their elections in 2022 and Argentina’s government may somehow overcome its current crisis.

But, even in the unlikely event that all of those things fall into place, by late next year López Obrador will be a lame-duck president. For the time being, there won’t be any “pink tide” in the region, much less one led by Mexico.

Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show on Sundays at 8 pm E.T. on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera