AMBASSADOR ARTURO SARUKHAN: President Biden fundamentally needs Mexican support and López Obrador knows it and on the one hand he is taking advantage of it to carry out what I would call diplomatic blackmail...
RAMOS: Why…what…
SARUKHAN: …by asking President Biden to…
RAMOS: What do you mean by blackmail?
SARUKHAN: Yes. To suspend, as López Obrador says, the United States' "blockade" of Cuba, forgetting that this is not an (American) executive power, but a Congressional power. Second, calling for sanctions on Venezuela to be removed, asking for billions of dollars in support for Central America. And deep down it is also a kind of blackmail, because I believe that what we are seeing, Jorge, what we have seen in recent months is the Mexican government opening and closing the valve of migratory flows to the border. That is, they close, open, close and open to create pressure on the Biden administration and thereby do a very important thing: obtain diplomatic capital so that when the Mexican presidential campaign begins to take shape, as it begins to gain speed, López Obrador can use that capital of “I am helping you” in order to prevent the United States from raising its voice and saying, “what’s going on with the election in Mexico?”