Since the beginning of 2024, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) has promoted a set of legal reforms aimed at rooting out corruption and diminishing Western corporate interests in the Mexican judiciary. At the core of AMLO’s proposal are popular elections for all judges, including the Supreme Court of Mexico.
For years, corruption, bribery, and police brutality have been the hallmarks of Mexican courts and law enforcement. Cartels, militarized police, and U.S. corporations exert enormous amounts of pressure on Mexican judges in the form of bribes, threats, and violence. Under the current appointment system, judges in the hands of organized crime or companies like General Motors can maintain their positions indefinitely.
These judges scuttle any individual or institutional attempt to bring justice to brutal cops, maquiladora bosses, or drug cartel bosses.
AMLO’s reform aims to break this cycle by making the judiciary elected, not appointed. If the Mexican judiciary could effectively take on corrupt U.S. corporations and organized crime, it could help break the U.S. stranglehold on Mexican labor and reel in an out-of-control militarized police force. Under NAFTA and the current U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”), U.S. corporations own and operate factories across different industries in Mexico.
Further, the U.S. and Canada browbeat Mexico into pledging against state-owned enterprises as a part of the USMCA. NAFTA, and now USMCSA, allow, if not empower, U.S. billionaire corporations to pay Mexican workers less for more work and avoid most regulations enforcing higher standards for workers.
Many of these same companies demanding continued cheap labor in Mexico left U.S. workers high and dry as they closed down factories over the past several decades. Mexican and U.S. workers have common enemies in Washington and on Wall Street.
A change in Mexico’s judiciary towards regulating U.S.-owned factories and away from the USMCA could help Mexico gain some independence from the U.S. imperialist machine.
And for these exact reasons, the U.S. government and its mouthpieces have unleashed a firestorm of criticism against AMLO and his proposed reform.
The U.S. Mission to Mexico denounced the reform and said that “popular election of judges is a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.” What?! Popular elections are a threat to democracy? The U.S. has a fascinating definition of democracy. Is the U.S. so openly saying that “Mexican democracy” means a form of government that explicitly and solely benefits a small number of Western oligarchs?
The U.S. Mission asserted that the proposed reforms would “threaten the historic trade relationship [the U.S. and Mexico] have built, which relies on investors’ confidence in Mexico’s legal framework.” As previously noted, U.S. corporations benefit greatly from a weak and corrupt Mexican judiciary. What the U.S. embassy won’t say is that “investors’ confidence” is based on higher and higher levels of exploitation of Mexican workers.
The neoliberal think tank, the Wilson Center, went a step further and openly invoked the USMCA. Specifically, “If approved, these legal shifts could seriously challenge North America’s long term competitiveness, and nearshoring potential, jeopardize billions in U.S. and Canadian investments in Mexico, and complicate the 2026 review of the USMCA.” Translated: if the Mexican judiciary actually works, the U.S. ruling class could lose a lot of money.
This attack on AMLO’s reform is nothing more than a U.S. corporate attempt to maintain a stranglehold on the Mexican economy. The U.S. cannot allow any attempt to restrict its exploitation of Mexican labor, even a relatively mild one. AMLO did not propose nationalizing the energy sector or serious tariffs on imported U.S. goods. However, the U.S. capitalist machine won’t risk losing a single penny. No restriction of their market domination can be allowed. Hence, they will fight this reform tooth and nail.
When U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar bellicosely proposed that putting judges up for election would threaten “the historic commercial relationship” between the two countries, the Mexican government responded that Salazar’s comments “represent an unacceptable interference, a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”
AMLO suspended diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Canada, which has also denounced the judicial reforms. While this reaction is certainly justified and frankly should be applauded, it might be noted that AMLO’s response to the attempted coup in Venezuela was not nearly as strong. In fact, AMLO has yet to recognize Nicolas Maduro’s election victory even after it was fully certified by the Supreme Court.
This is unfortunate because Washington’s attempts to re-colonize Venezuela are also a threat to Mexico. An attack on the sovereignty of one Latin American country is an attack on the sovereignty of all.
The U.S. attack on AMLO’s proposed judicial reform is outrageous and entirely rooted in the interests of the U.S. billionaire class. Mexico deserves to carve its future without having to pay the piper that is U.S. imperialism at every turn.
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