He has railed against what he called Donald Trump’s arrogant, racist and inhumane family separation policy. He has lambasted the “erratic” US president’s “hate campaign” against Latin American migrants.
But Mexico’s president-elect, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, struck a more diplomatic tone on Monday, promising to “reach an understanding” with his northern counterpart in a half-hour conversation .
Just hours after his historic election victory sent thousands of supporters pouring on to the streets, the 64-year-old leftist tweeted that he had received a call from Donald Trump.
"I proposed that we explore an integral agreement of development projects, which generate jobs in Mexico and with that reduce migration and improve security. There was respectful treatment and our representatives will speak more."
In an interview with the Televisa news network, Mr López Obrador emphasised the need for mutual respect and co-operation between the two neighbours.
"We are conscious of the need to maintain good relations with the United States. We have a border of more than 3,000km, more than 12 million Mexicans live in the United States. It is our main economic-commercial partner," he said.
“We are not going to fight. We are always going to seek for there to be an agreement . . . We are going to extend our frank hand to seek a relation of friendship, I repeat, of co-operation with the United States.”
Tactful Trump
Mr Trump was equally tactful, telling reporters: “I think he’s going to try and help us with the border.
“I think the relationship will be a very good one,” the US president said of the Mexican politician, whose swearing-in will be in December. “We talked about trade, we talked about Nafta, we talked about a separate deal, just Mexico and the United States.”
Such restraint contrasted with Mr Trump's call to Mr López Obrador's predecessor, weeks after his inauguration last year. During that call, Mr Trump told Enrique Peña Nieto that the US military would take care of "bad hombres" south of the border.
Mr López Obrador, or Amlo as he is best known, romped to a historic landslide victory on Sunday night, capitalising on public frustration at soaring crime rates and corruption with a promise to drain Mexico’s very own swamp.
Indeed, some see similarities between the two men. Like Mr Trump, Amlo cast himself as a political outsider during his campaign, despite having been a professional politician for decades, although Amlo avoided much of the New York billionaire’s nastiness and nativism.
Both men are considered inward-looking nationalists with Mr López Obrador claiming “the best foreign policy is domestic policy” and preaching “ mexicanismo”, a philosophy some have compared to Mr Trump’s America First.
But the US president was not an election issue in the recent Mexican campaign. "Trump is so despised that he is simply not an issue. He is equally opposed by every one of the candidates," the former Mexican diplomat Jorge Guajardo wrote in the Atlantic last week.
‘Dirty work’
Amlo was, on occasion, moved to publicly criticise Mr Trump’s actions. He warned Mexico would not be “the piñata of any foreign government” and hit back at Mr Trump’s claim that Mexico wasn’t doing enough to stop a caravan of Central American migrants. “[We] won’t do the dirty work of any foreign government,” he said.
Some observers said they would not be surprised if Amlo and Mr Trump could find some understanding. “They’ll understand each other perfectly. They won’t agree – that’s a different thing,” said Federico Estévez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
“At heart, these guys believe the same things, though they will disagree radically because one is on the left and one is on the right.”
Eric Olson, a Mexico and Latin America specialist from Washington's Wilson Centre, also predicted the two leaders would find ways "to work together and to find common ground".
In recent years Mexico and the United States have co-operated closely on security matters, especially with regards to Mexico’s “war on drugs”.
“The relationship with the United States – which is vitally important to both sides – may be tense and may take on different moments [under Amlo] . But it’s impossible for the US to walk away from Mexico or for Mexico to walk away from the US,” Mr Olson said.
“They are joined at the hip and need to work together even if their presidents don’t like each other and don’t get along. So I think there are some shades of grey here that will merge over time.” – Guardian