Rashide Frias · AFP · Getty In December 2020 Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (‘Amlo’) congratulated Joe Biden on his election victory, but his message departed from the usual diplomatic niceties. He said he was sure that with Biden as president it would be possible to continue to apply ‘basic principles of foreign policy established in our constitution; especially that of non-intervention and self-determination of the peoples.’ The US State Department, convinced that the security and prosperity of the US are ‘intimately connected with conditions in Mexico’, has long made keeping an eye on its southern neighbour a top priority (1), with scant regard for its sovereignty.