A member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the third richest country in Latin America in PPT per capita terms, Mexico indubitably is a rising middle power. But it does not behave like one. It often pursues atypical foreign policy. At times its foreign policy behaviour is one of principled pragmatism, at others it appears as what London’s influential Economist magazine calls “erratic and unprincipled.” It would be unfair to describe Mexico’s foreign policy under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) as enigmatic.

Mexico is what Gunther Maihold of Frei Universitat, Berlin calls a “wannabe leading power.” Despite his leftist credentials, President AMLO seems content with Mexico remaining a reluctant middle power. The reasons are not hard to find. Mexican foreign policy expert Olga Pellicer de Brody provides the answer to this puzzle. She argues that a major obstacle for “an improved Mexican position in international politics” has been “the difficulty of defining the country’s specific regional identity as a northwardgazing country or as an outstanding Latin American leader.”

Mexico has been described as a future fifth power by a study carried out by Goldman Sachs. Currently, Mexico lags behind China, India, Brazil and Russia, but by 2040 it will become the fifth largest economic power. It has overtaken China as the leading source of goods imported to the US. Now it has become a supply chain reshoring leader. President AMLO’s pragmatism is understandable.

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The return of geopolitics portends a rocky road for foreign policy and international cooperation which have always depended on convergence of great power interests. Global politics is at the crossroads. Rising multipolarity, harder solutions, institutional inertia, and institutional fragmentation........

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