Canada and the US are continuing their pressure campaign on Mexico’s widely popular Morena government. While in the past Ottawa and Washington targeted President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) progressive mining, energy, and agriculture policies, this time, they slammed a judicial reform plan that would allow Mexican voters to elect their own judges, including to the Supreme Court. The reforms officially took effect this week.

The proposal to elect judges by vote is, like AMLO’s government, popular among a majority of Mexican state legislatures. Tens of thousands assembled in recent weeks to support the reform. Nevertheless, the Canadian and US governments have spoken out against it. US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar claims that the democratic reforms represent “a major risk to the functioning of Mexico’s democracy.” For his part, Canadian Ambassador Graeme Clarke warned of “investor worries” if Mexicans are allowed to elect their judges by popular vote. American and Canadian officials have implied that the popular election of Mexican judges could endanger their trade relationship with the country.

At the same time, major North American media have sensationalized the reform’s supposed implications for judicial independence and Morena’s continued hold on power. Bloomberg warned that the reform plan is “sparking investor concern,” while a Globe and Mail opinion piece asserted that “AMLO’s nationalism blinds him to Mexico’s economic needs.” The Washington Post went as far as to claim that “Mexico’s rule of law is in danger.” Meanwhile, CNN described September as “a perilous month for Mexico’s democracy,” inviting former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum to assert, without correction, that Morena is an “authoritarian nationalist” party and that AMLO is a “Mexican Trump” whose final month in office will be “dangerous” for the country.

This framing is misleading. Morena is widely popular in Mexico; the right-wing opposition was refuted, as the recent presidential and parliamentary elections showed. Consequently, a good deal of Western criticism of AMLO’s judicial agenda has reflected a bizarre logic in which democratic reforms are framed as “undemocratic” because they may take power away from powerful, as well as widely disliked and discredited, sectors of society.

President AMLO, who is ending his six-year term with a 73 percent approval rate, responded to Ottawa and Washington’s aggressive entreaties by announcing a “pause” in diplomatic relations with both countries. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena proclaimed that “decisions about Mexico are and must be made by Mexicans.” President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum also defended the reform amid Canadian and US condemnation:

What’s best? Justices of the Supreme Court elected by the Senate of the Republic or by the people of Mexico? Who says the people of Mexico? Raise your hand. This is democracy—democracy to elect the president, democracy for lawmakers, and democracy for the judiciary, too, so that it’s a judiciary at the service of the people.

AMLO described Ambassador Salazar’s comments as “disrespectful of our national sovereignty” and sent a note to the US embassy labelling his interference “unacceptable.” In a press conference, the president added, “the Canadians are doing it too, which is also embarrassing… they look like an associated state.”

Amid the diplomatic rift, the US Congress has continued to pressure AMLO. On August 27, Senators Ben Cardin, Jim Risch, Tim Kaine, and Marco Rubio issued a statement expressing “deep concern” about the judicial reform, claiming that it and other changes to Mexico’s constitution “may contradict commitments made in the US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.”

AMLO will leave office on September 30. His successor, Sheinbaum, won the June elections with 60 percent of the vote—a total of 36 million votes, the highest number ever received by a Mexican presidential candidate. Morena won a supermajority in the House of Deputies, the Senate, and in the state congresses, and they did so while running on “Plan C,” a suite of progressive policies including the judicial reform bill. As journalist Kurt Hackbarth puts it: “[Plan C] is a series of progressive reforms that AMLO laid out [prior to the June election] and said, ‘give us the supermajority so that we can pass these.’ And the public did.” Although Sheinbaum has yet to take office, the new Congress is now sitting and working on passing a number of Plan C reforms.

Morena’s resounding mandate to govern, paired with AMLO’s high approval ratings, stand in stark contrast to his counterparts north of the border. By comparison, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presides over a weak minority government with 28 percent approval, while a majority of Americans disapprove of President Joe Biden’s performance, so much so that Donald Trump may return to the White House in the November election.

AMLO’s judicial reforms have made Mexico’s judiciary arguably more democratic than Canada’s, in which Supreme Court judges are appointed by the governor general on the advice of cabinet. In the US, judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, after which they serve for life, no matter how unpopular they are.

This begs the question: why are Canada and the US so opposed to democratic reforms in Mexico? What does Mexicans electing judges by popular vote have to do with the trade relationship between the three nations?

Canada and the US have been frustrated with AMLO for the entirety of his six-year term, yet overall, business as usual has largely continued. AMLO is a progressive nationalist, after all, not a socialist. Even so, his efforts to increase the state’s role in key sectors of the Mexican economy, thereby weakening the predominance of foreign investors, has generated much rancour in Ottawa and Washington. Canadian and US companies have sued Mexico for its nationalist reforms, and officials from both governments have flown to Mexico to pressure AMLO’s government to reverse course.

By implementing the much-criticized judicial changes, AMLO is guaranteeing popular elections for judiciary positions, reduced term limits, and disciplinary mechanisms for corrupt judges. As Hackbarth says, “[In Mexico] they are creating a people-powered judiciary which actually has real teeth to go after corrupt judges.” On top of this, Plan C reforms include the prohibition of fracking and open-pit mining, increased autonomy for Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, the annual review of minimum wage so it is never below inflation, and more.

Why is the Trudeau government opposed to these reforms? Because Canadian foreign policy increasingly privileges the interests of capital over democratic principles and accountability. As officials in Ottawa stare down six more years of Morena, they are worried that the privileges they have long enjoyed in Mexico may wither away entirely.

Owen Schalk is a writer from rural Manitoba. He is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023 and the co-author of Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy with Yves Engler.