Tim Kaine Grills Trump's Mexico Ambassador Nom On Pushing Back On 'Drifts Towards Authoritarianism'

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During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned President Trump's Mexico Ambassador nominee about standing up to 'drifts towards authoritarianism' in Mexico.

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Transcript

00:00Recognize Senator Cain. Thank you, Senator, and thanks to the panel. This is a

00:05power-packed panel, so all three of you have been ambassadors, and the three

00:11nations you're nominated to serve as ambassadors are three of our top five

00:16trading partners. Mexico number one, Canada number three, Japan number five. So

00:21we don't have a panel like this very often, and so first congratulations on

00:25your nomination to posts as important as this. The nations of Canada, Japan, and

00:31Mexico are also partners and friends. Not friends without challenges, you

00:36know, a friendship that hadn't been tested by a challenge isn't a friendship. So all

00:40of these are relationship with challenges, but this is not a hard call

00:45as to whether Canada, Japan, and Mexico are on the friend side of the ledger or

00:50the adversary. They're on the friend side of the ledger, and I am a strong

00:53believer that we are stronger as a nation when we link arms with friends

00:57against adversaries and not get confused about who is a friend and who isn't. And

01:02I'm troubled by actions in the first couple months, some of which may be

01:06negotiation tactics, but I am troubled by actions in the first couple months that

01:09are making some of our friends, including Canada especially, wonder if in fact we

01:15recognize the values of friendship that have stretched for centuries. Mr. Johnson,

01:21I want to focus my questions on you. I wish I had 20 minutes I'd get to all of

01:24you, but I'm the chairman of the, the lead Democrat, the ranking member on the

01:30Western Hemisphere subcommittee here, and your service in Salvador, your nomination

01:34to Mexico is really important. I want to ask a question about rule of law and

01:39sort of some tendencies toward authoritarianism in Mexico, but I'll begin

01:44with a precursor. You did have a very strong reputation in your service in El

01:48Salvador. There were a number of things going well. There were also some

01:53things that were causing major concerns. There was an incident when you were

01:56ambassador where President Bukele sent troops into the National Assembly to try

02:01to strong-arm a vote on something that he thought was important. And my

02:05recollection, and I'd be happy to be corrected about this, is that you did not

02:09say anything publicly about that clearly sort of authoritarian move. I have been

02:15in other nations in the Americas where similar things have happened, and either

02:19the ambassador or the charge, in one case it was in Guatemala, spoke up pretty

02:23strongly against obvious authoritarian moves. I'm less interested in the

02:28Salvador side. I'm really interested in Mexico. A couple of things are happening

02:33in Mexico. One involves Senator Hagerty, and I know he might ask you about it.

02:36There have been efforts to try to seize American property in Mexico. There's a

02:41company, Vulcan, that operates in a number of states that has property in Mexico

02:44where the AMLO government was clearly trying to seize it, even using military

02:50to do so, and the current Mexican government has been a little bit unclear

02:54about the posture they're going to take. Are they going to continue that or not?

02:56Similarly, there have been actions in Mexico to reduce the independence of the

03:03judiciary, and largely that has been seen as an effort to clip the wings of a

03:08judiciary that might stand up against corruption, stand up against, you know,

03:13single-party rule, dangerous to the rule of law. Should you be confirmed in Mexico,

03:18how do you see the current situation there, and how could you use your

03:23service as an ambassador to promote rule of law, to promote protection of property

03:28rights, and to put some kind of a check or at least public warning

03:33against drifts toward authoritarianism?

03:37Senator, thank you for the question, and thank you for your continuing interest

03:42in Latin America for many decades now, especially Honduras, so thank you very

03:49much for that. I'd like to first address what occurred on February the 6th, and I

03:56believe it was 2020 in El Salvador, when President Bukele entered the

04:00assembly on a Sunday with armed troops. First of all, I did, I did, I am

04:10publicly on the record saying that I did not condone what he did, and

04:15something that few people know is that I was in contact with him moments before

04:22he made the decision, and I was telling him not to go, do not do this. How far in

04:28advance of that were you aware that that was his intent? I think hours in advance.

04:33I mean, it happened on a weekend, I believe it was on a Sunday, and it was

04:40an emergency session of Congress, and some members resented that they were

04:45being called in and didn't show up, and there were people on both sides that

04:50were demonstrating. It was a peaceful demonstration, a truly peaceful

04:53demonstration, and one thing that I've used to highlight the entrance into the

04:58to the assembly, President Bukele has no plain-clothed security. That was the only

05:04security he has, and one thing that I think emphasizes how peaceful it was is

05:10they had to wait 45 minutes to delay entering, 45 minutes to wait for the guy

05:15with the key to show up to open the door. There had been previous times at the

05:20assembly in El Salvador that had not been nearly that peaceful, but we did

05:25address it, and I did criticize him publicly for doing that, as well as

05:30privately. We had long discussions about it. Mexico is much different. I think the

05:36key anywhere to a relationship like that is to establish a trust and

05:42confidence in each other early on in the relationship. I think the way to do that

05:47is to look at things that are mutually beneficial to both the United States and

05:51Mexico and focus, at least initially, focus your energy on those things. I

05:55think in terms of U.S. businesses and property seizures of U.S. foreign

06:01investments in Mexico is a signal to the world that frightens other potential

06:07investors, and I think by engaging and having a dialogue about how this might

06:12affect your future and how your economy could move forward or could move

06:18backward purely based on foreign investment in Mexico, they're right now, I

06:24believe, if they're not number one, they're close to being our number one

06:27foreign investment location, too. So I think the key to that is just having

06:31that constant dialogue and building trust. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Tim Kaine Grills Trump's Mexico Ambassador Nom On Pushing Back On 'Drifts Towards Authoritarianism'

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