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MEXICO CITY — U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson struck a warm and optimistic tone at the American Chamber of Commerce’s 109th Annual Assembly Wednesday, describing the bilateral relationship as “a marriage” and confirming that the United States has been far too occupied with everything else to follow through on any previously announced military adventurism.
“We don’t see the USMCA review as a risk, but as an opportunity,” Johnson told a room full of businesspeople at the Papalote Children’s Museum. “Also, and I want to be clear about this, nobody is currently planning to annex anyone. We checked this morning.”
Johnson went on to describe a relationship of such deep interdependence — nearly a trillion dollars in annual trade, shared borders, shared supply chains, shared fentanyl concerns — that any lingering invasion talk should be understood as the kind of thing couples say during a rough patch.
“You can love each other a lot, be partners, raise children and grow businesses even when you don’t agree on everything,” Johnson said, in what diplomatic observers noted was a somewhat unconventional framing for a formal trade address, but perhaps the most accurate one in recent memory.
When asked by a reporter whether Washington’s earlier rhetoric about cartel designations, military operations on Mexican soil, and the general suggestion that Mexico was a failed state requiring external management had simply slipped through the cracks, Johnson smiled and said that the U.S. and Mexico currently have “the most secure border in history.”
Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard, reached for comment while in Washington for the first round of formal USMCA negotiations, confirmed that talks were “going well” and that no one had mentioned annexation even once, which he described as “a solid foundation.”
President Sheinbaum, for her part, confirmed she remains open to the marriage analogy, while noting that in healthy marriages, one spouse does not typically deploy special operations forces into the other’s backyard.
Johnson closed his remarks by declaring that North America, united, “could be independent.” The audience applauded. Nobody asked independent from who.
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