Mexico’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), Ambassador Alejandro Encinas, published an opinion piece in the Mexican newspaper El Universal to explain why he abstained during the Permanent Council’s vote on August 16. As is widely known, representatives from 29 OAS member states voted that day to convene an extraordinary meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Americas to collectively address the deepening political crisis in Nicaragua. However, Brazil voted against it, and Mexico abstained—a move that, for all practical political intents, was equivalent to a vote against the measure.
Before Ambassador Encinas published his op-ed, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum justified Mexico’s abstention during her morning press conference, «Las Mañaneras», on Thursday, August 20. «It aligns with Mexico’s constitutional principles. It is a matter of self-determination of peoples and is clearly enshrined in our Constitution,» the Mexican chief executive asserted.
Unsurprisingly, Mexico’s ambassador to the OAS echoed President Sheinbaum’s stance in his column. Furthermore, he argued that Mexico has criticized the Nicaraguan dictatorship in previous OAS meetings. Addressing Daniel Ortega’s declaration on July 19 that opposition forces would never again be permitted to take power through elections, the ambassador maintained that Mexico reaffirmed its position that «holding genuine, periodic elections is a legal obligation binding states under international law.»
The Mexican ambassador added that he abstained in the OAS vote because «the resolution [to convene the extraordinary foreign ministers’ meeting] lacks sufficient basis and stems from an ambiguous general objective: ‘To consider the situation in Nicaragua and appropriate measures.'»
Yet the Mexican representative to the OAS went even further, revealing the true motivation behind the decision to abstain. «This is no small matter,» he stated, «especially in the current regional climate, where there is an attempt to securitize and subordinate the hemispheric agenda to the National Security Strategy of the United States. In this environment, senior officials from OAS member states issue hostile statements threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations, grounded in doctrines aimed at securing regional dominance, controlling strategic infrastructure and critical minerals, and manufacturing new adversaries—such as narcoterrorism and far-left terrorism.»
In other words, Mexico’s posture is driven by strategic political posturing vis-à-vis the United States. International policy analysts argue, however, that by alleging the U.S. is inventing new threats like narcoterrorism to safeguard its national security, the Mexican ambassador tacitly concedes that Mexico operates as a narco-state. By implicitly acknowledging this status, Mexico seeks to prevent establishing a precedent that classifies drug trafficking, narcoterrorism, and their fallout—including systemic corruption—as threats to hemispheric security. Consequently, Mexico remains unwilling to join a coordinated regional response against the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
It is worth noting that Mexico’s traditional non-intervention policy is anchored in the Estrada Doctrine, proclaimed in September 1930 by then-Foreign Minister Genaro Estrada Félix. The principle holds that a nation should neither judge, grant, nor withhold diplomatic recognition from foreign governments, as doing so would constitute an infringement on another nation’s sovereignty.
Nevertheless, the Estrada Doctrine must adapt to the evolution of international law, under which Mexico has undertaken binding commitments to uphold human rights, liberty, representative democracy, and the rule of law—as well as to participate in defending hemispheric security.
That is precisely the purpose of convening an extraordinary meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Americas: to collectively analyze Nicaragua’s political crisis and determine appropriate action. The goal is to prevent the Nicaraguan dictatorship from continuing to erode regional stability and evolving into an unmanageable threat to hemispheric security—and to every nation across the Americas.
