Mexico's supreme court claims credit for ending trade spat

Mexico’s supreme court is taking credit for ending a trade dispute dating from 2022 with the US and Canada, which had protested against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s restrictive energy policies.

In a statement on Wednesday, the court credited its January 31 ruling against the López Obrador administration's regulations giving priority to federal utility CFE over private power companies in selling power into the grid, regardless of cost. A panel of supreme court justices declared the president’s 2021 amendments to the electric power industry law (LIE) unconstitutional.  

“The decision had a decisive impact on the controversy that both the United States and Canada had filed within the [USMCA trade agreement] framework against Mexico over the government's sector policy," the court said. 

“The declaration of unconstitutionality left the consultations those countries filed in July 2022 with the energy panel without effect, which means that a large-scale economic impact was avoided for Mexico."

In contrast, economy minister Raquel Buenrostro told news agency EFE on Tuesday that the trade dispute had been over since October but that she has not received the memorandum to make things official. However, she said tensions dropped after the court moved to declare the reforms unconstitutional.