In the picture
Mexican President López Obrador receives his Peruvian counterpart, Pedro Castillo, in 2021 [Presidency of Mexico].
Few countries in the world have an established doctrine to guide their foreign policy. Mexico is one of them. Nevertheless, the Estrada Doctrine has been applied during its century of validity with certain inconsistencies. These have result especially evident in the presidencies of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, during which Mexico's diplomatic relations with some American neighbors, such as Peru and Ecuador, have been severely damaged. In the face of a doctrine that speaks of non-interference in the internal politics of other countries, AMLO and Sheinbaum have openly meddled in defense of leftist co-religionists and against legitimate governments in the region.
The Estrada Doctrine is an official declaration formulated by Mexico a little more than a century ago and which Mexican governments have generally maintained as a basic principle for their foreign policy. It maintains that no state or government requires the recognition of other nations to proclaim its sovereignty; in this way, it reaffirms the principle of non-intervention and free self-determination of peoples, as well as the commitment to non-interference in the internal politics of other countries. It was proclaimed on September 27, 1930 by the then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Genaro Estrada Félix, in a context where the recognition of states was used as a pressure mechanism against weak countries[1]. Since then, it has been a pillar of Mexican diplomacy that synthesizes, on the one hand, an attitude of rejection against colonialism and, on the other, Mexico's international openness.
Based on this doctrine, Mexico has a history of stable diplomatic relations with countries of diverse ideologies. For example, in 1962, it was the only Latin American country that did not break relations with Cuba. Similarly, decades later, it was the only member of the Lima group , created in 2017 to accompany the Venezuelan civil service examination in a peaceful solution to the crisis in their country, that did not recognize Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela.
However, throughout this century of invoking the Estrada Doctrine, Mexico has applied it inconsistently. For example, in the 1970s it supported the fall of Somoza in Nicaragua and backed the Sandinistas; it also withdrew its ambassador from Chile after the Pinochet coup. Mexico has defended that in these cases the doctrine was not actually violated because there was no explicit judgment on the legitimacy of those governments, however, the recent diplomatic clashes it has had in the region with Peru and Ecuador could have violated that principle, something that is reviewed below.
Castillo's dismissal in Peru
In July 2021, Pedro Castillo Terrones was sworn in as President of Peru, after winning the elections with a narrow margin (50.1% of the votes). The meager parliamentary support he counted on heralded his defeat in the session that the Peruvian congress convened in December 2022 to remove him from office through a motion of vacancy. To avoid that motion, Castillo attempted to dissolve the congress through a message to the nation, in a decision that the national political community received as a 'self-coup'. Castillo was arrested for rebellion and removed from his position for "moral incapacity". Before his arrest, Castillo wanted to take refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Lima, where his wife and children were able to arrive.
Once the vacancy was declared and Castillo was replaced by Vice-President Dina Boluarte, the President of Mexico came to the defense of the deposed president. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) declared on social networks that the economic and political elites of Peru had overthrown the legitimate president of the country and indicated that the door of the Mexican Embassy would be open to welcome those who were persecuted, continuing with the Mexican tradition of asylum. In this way, he granted asylum to Castillo's family, which Peruvian authorities criticized as a clear interference in internal affairs. The Boluarte government expelled the Mexican ambassador, limited bilateral relations to the commercial sphere and declared López Obrador 'persona non grata'.
Political asylum has been a regular internship by Mexico. This country has welcomed political figures such as Haya de la Torre in 1923, Trotsky in 1937, Fidel Castro in 1955 and Evo Morales in 2019. It also received Spanish Republicans who went into exile there in 1936. Although it has generally embraced more leftist causes, that tradition of political refuge is true.
But if it is possible to affirm that the reception of Castillo's family corresponds to that attitude, the constant support for Castillo after his dismissal and the explicit rejection of Boluarte, both by López Obrador and his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, imply an intervention and a value judgment of the Peruvian political status , which leaves aside the fundamentals of the Estrada Doctrine.
López Obrador refused to hand over to Boluarte the 'pro tempore' presidency of the Pacific Alliance, damaging not only the bilateral relationship but also the very activity of that regional organization of which Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile are members. For her part, Sheinbaum resigned to attend the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum) summit held in Peru in November 2024, thus avoiding the greeting and recognition of Boluarte as president of the host country.
When on October 10, 2025 Boluarte was kicked out of the presidency by the Peruvian congress and replaced in the position by the latter's president, José Jerí, Sheinbaum was satisfied with the decision taken against Boluarte and insisted that the previous action against Castillo was a coup d'état due to racism and classism. In any case, bad relations have not improved: the news that Mexico had granted political asylum to Betsy Chávez, who was Castillo's prime minister, motivated the new government of Jerí to decree the expulsion of the chargé d'affaires of the Mexican Embassy in Lima (the highest authority since it does not have an ambassador). Subsequently, the Peruvian congress declared Sheinbaum 'persona non grata'.
The entrance at the Embassy in Quito
Between December 2023 and April 2024, former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas hid in the Mexican Embassy in Quito to avoid imprisonment following a judicial conviction for corruption. Glas' presence in the legation generated a crisis between the two nations. While Ecuador requested Glas' submission and denied legal grounds for his asylum, Mexico preferred to hear Glas' allegations of political persecution and judicial irregularities and confirmed his reception.
In an escalation of tension, the government of Daniel Noboa asked for consent to execute the arrest warrant against Glas, while from Mexico López Obrador questioned the legitimacy of the Ecuadorian presidential elections of 2023, in which Noboa won over the candidate of the party of former president Rafael Correa, of which Glas had been vice-president. As a consequence, on April 4, Ecuador declared the Mexican ambassador "persona non grata" and the following day Mexico formally granted political asylum to Glas.
On April 6, 2024, Ecuadorian forces stormed the Mexican Embassy to arrest Glas, an action that Mexico considered a serious violation of international law and which led to the immediate severance of diplomatic relations. The operation was rejected by the UN and the OAS, which issued communiqués and resolutions condemning the use of force. Finally, Mexico filed a claim before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on April 11, to which Ecuador responded with a counterclaim on April 29. In its ruling, the Court decided not to order the provisional measures requested by Mexico against Ecuador, mainly due to the lack of urgency and Ecuador's guarantees to respect the inviolability of the Mexican Embassy. The case, however, remains open before the ICJ.
Questioning Noboa's election, but not Maduro's election
While Mexico's angry reaction to the violation of its sovereign space - the premises of its Embassy in Quito - is justified, in all this controversy between the two countries AMLO and Sheinbaum have fallen into the subject of interference against which the Estrada Doctrine was drafted and which Mexico would not want for itself at all. There could be room for discussion on the fact of granting asylum to someone who has been condemned in his home country, in the case that there is evidence that the courts of the country in question have been unjust, but to qualify as a 'coup d'état' a democratic action of Peru against the attempted 'self-coup' of Castillo, as most of the international community saw it, or to qualify as fraud the election of Noboa is to play a sectarianism unbecoming of the objectivity that seeks the application of a doctrine.
With its recent actions, Mexico has fallen into a clear partisanship in foreign policy, questioning the democratic processes in Peru and Ecuador, but accepting the permanence of Maduro in Venezuela, when the triumph of the civil service examination and the defeat of Chavism in the presidential elections of 2024 was evident. Mexico asked to see the conference proceedings, but seems to forget that Maduro still does not show them.
[1] Core of the Estrada Doctrine: "The Government of Mexico does not grant recognition because it considers this internship denigrating, since, in addition to wounding the sovereignty of other nations, it places them in the situation where their internal affairs can be qualified in any sense by other governments, who, in fact, assume an attitude of criticism by deciding favorably or unfavorably on the legal capacity of foreign regimes. The Mexican government only limits itself to maintain or withdraw, when it deems it appropriate, its diplomatic agents. No grade rashly, nor a posteriori, No grade the right of nations to accept, maintain or substitute their governments or authorities".