Frictions between Mexico and Peru continue to worsen. Relations officially broke down at the beginning of November, due to the diplomatic asylum granted by the Mexican government to Betssy Chávez, Pedro Castillo’s former prime minister, accused of complicity in the alleged 2022 self-coup. Tension has increased now that the president of Peru, José Jerí, has raised the possibility that the police will enter the Mexican embassy to arrest Chávez. The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, warned this Monday that this would represent a “violation of the sovereignty” of her country and “would violate all international laws.” Sheinbaum, declared by the Peruvian Congress persona non grata for his “interference in the internal affairs” of the Andean country, he defended that the diplomatic protection granted to Chávez “is a right of asylum within the framework of international relations and its laws, and the violation would be very serious”, he indicated in a press conference in the National Palace.
In a newspaper interview CommerceJerí left the door ajar for a raid on the Mexican embassy in Peru, where Chávez has taken refuge for three weeks awaiting safe passage that the Executive has left in limbo. “I don’t limit myself, and if you have to enter the Mexican embassy, we will do it. I have demonstrated with concrete actions, which many did not expect, that my hand does not tremble,” said the lawyer who succeeded Dina Boluarte a month and a half ago after her vacation. Jerí even upped the ante and declared that he will face political condemnation for failing to respect his international commitments in the event of a raid on the Mexican embassy residence, located in the San Isidro neighborhood of Lima. “I’m not afraid when I know I’m doing the right thing,” he said.
Jerí, who was not elected at the polls, has adopted a way of doing politics similar to that of the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele: he organized raids and tightened prison conditions, in the midst of an unprecedented insecurity crisis. It is the same “strong hand” that he places in the diplomatic field. Asked whether relations with Mexico will be restored once Sheinbaum’s term ends, Jerí responded: “We are a sovereign country and our relations have been damaged because other presidents have allowed these excesses. I will not allow it. I will be 39 years old, but I know what I have to do and I think about it carefully. I don’t have any kind of fear when I make decisions.”
President Sheinbaum once again questioned Peru’s drastic decision to sever relations with Mexico. However, he specified that the raid on the embassy would already represent a violation of international conventions. “We may have differences, but always within the framework of international law,” he noted. “Dialogue is always the best thing, there can be differences and opinions are expressed. They have made the decision to break relations with Mexico, but an intervention in the embassy would be out of the norm”, he underlined. Sheinbaum recalled the assault on the Mexican embassy by the Ecuadorian police in 2024, an issue – also – of a political nature that led the North American country to break relations with the Ecuadorian government.
The president, of the Somos Perú group, denied that there is political persecution in Peru and claimed that no former president is kidnapped, alluding to Pedro Castillo. “I understand that they talk nonsense as part of a political defense rather than a legal one. People already know who is who,” he said. Finally, regarding the announcement of the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, that he will withdraw his embassy if Peru enters the residence, he said bluntly: “Senseless words, deaf ears.”
Relations between Mexico and Peru are battered after the crisis caused by Castillo. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s predecessor, always maintained that Castillo’s removal was a coup by the Peruvian right. In his unconditional support for the rural master, López Obrador ignored the Boluarte government, which he defined as spurious. In response, the Peruvian Congress classified itself persona non grata to López Obrador. The line followed by Sheinbaum and Jerí, similar to that of their predecessors, ended up undermining the bond between the two Latin American countries.
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