Shattering Stereotypes and Talking Trade: Departing Mexican Consul General Reflects on Nine Years in Atlanta

When Mexican Consul General Javier Diaz de Leon presumably heads to Turkey as Mexico’s ambassador there this month, he’ll miss a few aspects of Atlanta: family, friends and food — in that order.

After nine years here, Mr. Diaz de Leon is leaving behind a daughter who was born in Australia during his posting there in 1996 — his last assignment outside of North America. She now works as an Atlanta attorney. 

But he’ll also lament not being able to pop down Buford Highway for some authentic carnitas, taking advantage of a Mexican food scene that now ranges from hole-in-the-wall delights to high-end fine dining. 

When he arrived, Atlanta was a land of “a lot of bad Tex-Mex,” with few places reflecting the rich and diverse culinary cultures of the U.S.’s southern neighbor.

In a way, Mexico faces the same problems getting a true reckoning as its food does getting fair representation in the U.S.: Americans see the country through their own prisms, rather than for its kaleidoscopic diversity and nuance. Mr. Diaz de Leon has sought to change that with an array of engagements, from hosting Mexican chefs to headlining trade forums and civic luncheons while opening his consulate for art exhibitions and press conferences announcing new nonstop flights to benefit business and leisure travelers.

Mr. Diaz de Leon came to Atlanta amid the 2016 presidential campaign, with candidate Donald Trump threatening to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he often bashed as the “worst deal ever.” 

Once Mr. Trump was elected, Mexico held steady, despite the turbulence caused by Mr. Trump’s infamous tweet-storms.

“It was a little bit of an uncharted territory for us,” Mr. Diaz de Leon said. “Twitter every morning was an adventure, because you never knew what was coming today.” 

Still, NAFTA was an existing framework. Negotiations were structured, and in many ways, the hard work had already been done. 

“The way we approached it was that NAFTA was basically old and it needed updating. And from our perspective, we had already updated NAFTA through the (Trans-Pacific Partnership). In that sense, through TPP, Mexico, the U.S. and Canada had already come up with a second-generation trade agreement, but when the United States withdrew, then we thought, OK, we need to sit down.”

As a consul general, it wasn’t Mr. Diaz de Leon’s job to respond to the latest salvos from U.S. trade negotiators. That was left to the embassy.

His role was to communicate with local stakeholders, which meant hitting the road throughout Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, often in partnership with his Canadian counterpart, to preach the benefits of integrated North American value chains. 

In some ways, this year has brought a bit of deja vu in this regard, as Mr. Trump in his second term has continued his attacks on Mexico and taken his threats of disengagement to a new level. 

On Mr. Diaz de Leon’s last day at the consulate, a threatened 30 percent tariff was paused for 90 days after a call between Mr. Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. But Mexico still faces a blanket 25 percent tariff for non-USMCA-compliant goods, plus 25 percent on foreign-sourced components in imported cars and 50 percent on steel, aluminum and copper.

A big difference this time around, Mr. Diaz de Leon says, is the use of trade threats as a tool for leverage on non-trade issues. 

“We’ve never seen something like that, because in the past, of course, the threat of tariffs was always trade-related. We’ve always been very careful not to contaminate one issue with another,” he said. 

Mexico works on issues like combating drug cartels, reducing the circulation of fentanyl and stemming the flow of illicit migrants “because it has to be done,” not because of trade pressures, he said. 

“It’s kind of dealing with oranges and pears,” he added.

Today June 18th, it's 9 years since I became Consul General of Mx in ATL. Not only has it been the longest posting in my career, but also one filled with satisfaction, challenges and friendships that made a life-lasting impact on me and my family. I❤️ATL
Ready for what´s next. pic.twitter.com/ETjWUFAMkJ

— Javier Díaz de León (@CGjdl) June 18, 2025

During the first renegotiation, public statements were often used as leverage for private talks, and that strategy has continued to this day. 

“That was kind of the mantra, and still is,” Mr. Diaz de Leon said. 

Mexico learned early on to parse public statements, perhaps designed for domestic audiences, from the real trade talks that happen behind closed doors, he said.

A North American Specialist 

For a Mexican consul general, a tenure spanning three administrations (four if you count the waning days of the second Obama term) is abnormal. 

Mr. Diaz de Leon has been the dean of the Atlanta consular corps — its longest-serving member — for four years, at a time when most diplomats posted here spend less here for their entire terms.

He says that’s partly a result of not only ongoing trade tiffs but immigration policies that have created hurdles for the Mexican community. It also might be because Mr. Diaz de Leon’s career path has seemed tailor-made to bring him to this point. 

Like most diplomatic missions, the Consulate General of Mexico has a dual role, first tending to the well-being of nearly a million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans across three states.

The second is public and economic diplomacy, building ties with legislators, chambers of commerce, community leaders and businesses in order to bolster commerce and project Mexican soft power (most notably through its culture and food).

When his diplomatic colleagues visit the massive building fronting Interstate 85, Mr. Diaz de Leon said, many are astounded by the demands on the consulate’s staff, which he praised for its professionalism throughout his posting.

“The best,” he said of his team. 

His post in Atlanta was a culmination of a gradual move southward in the United States for Mr. Diaz de Leon, who became a specialist in North American affairs by chance. 

After returning from Australia in the late 1990s, he landed a role in the office of the undersecretary for North America. At that time, the foreign ministry spent a lot of time touting the benefits of NAFTA, an agreement that was then just a few years old. 

“I don’t remember that a lot of (the undersecretary’s) speeches were around a joint vision of North America at that point — it was mostly about how we could strengthen our relationship through our newly founded free-trade agreement,” he said.

Over time, as China became more ascendant, the message would evolve into what proponents of today’s USMCA would argue: that working together is the only way the region can remain competitive.

After Mexico City, Mr. Diaz de Leon went to San Diego and then New York, his second of Mexico’s more than 50 consulates across the United States. He then moved to Washington, where he liaised between the ambassador and Mexican consulates for immigration issues. Accompanying the ambassador, he learned first hand to deal with “honchos” across the Beltway. 

The final piece of the puzzle came when he returned again to Mexico City to head up the Institute of Mexicans Abroad, which crafts policies for taking care of the Mexican diaspora across the world. 

When he became a head of mission, first in Raleigh and then in Atlanta, he’d amassed the ideal resume for one dealing with a consul’s separate but interconnected roles, inside and outside the walls of the consulate. 

“I always say that a Mexican consul in the U.S., if you want to create one in a lab, it’s a very complicated animal,” Mr. Diaz de Leon said. “This guy or lady has to be able to go downstairs right now and speak to a gardener or a construction worker and have empathy, and put him or herself in their place, and try to understand their lives and their reality. That sounds easy, but it’s not easy. And at the same time, that person also has to have the ability to talk to the governor, or talk to, I don’t know, the CEO of Home Depot.” 

Many diplomats, he said, thrive on cocktail hour at the chamber of commerce, but not the community work — or vice versa. 

The Mexican community — not to mention his superiors at the foreign ministry — won’t stand for a consul general that isn’t attentive to their needs, nor should they, he said. 

“That is not a choice; that is our No. 1 priority and actually the No. 1 expectation from my co-nationals here,” he said. “I don’t think they are satisfied — they are never satisfied, and that is not a criticism.”

Shattering Stereotypes: From the South to South of the Border

If confirmed by the Mexican Senate to his ambassadorial role, Mr. Diaz de Leon will finally break out of the mold of a North American consul general, but he’ll leave behind 12 years of advice for his successor, new Consul General Rafael Laveaga, on how to operate in this very particular region.

The South, Mr. Diaz de Leon has found, requires a tailored approach, in part because the Mexican community here is younger (in its age and its civic presence) than those in California or Texas. 

“(In those places) Mexicans were there before the gringos — which is completely different. These people here came in the 1990s,” he said, noting the massive migration that took place in the aftermath of the 1996 Olympic Games. “Basically our population is very young — age-wise, but also their presence here, so the community support for them — NGOs, or local governments creating programs for immigrants — is a 30-year history. Over there it’s a 60-, 80-, 90-year history. So they’re more vulnerable (here). The leadership is young, and the organizations … are young.” 

At the same time, the South is ascendant from a political perspective, lending the Hispanic minority greater influence in swing states like Georgia.   

“In the past nine years we saw Georgia become the center of the hurricane in a couple of election. Suddenly it was in the landscape and it became critical,” he said. 

In this dynamic region, talking business has created room for conversations that help shatter stereotypes, whether about the bilateral relationship or Mexico more broadly, he said.

“When we talked about trade … with conservative local governments, it opens the door. That was a tremendous tool.” 

Still, in nearly a decade, Mr. Diaz de Leon doesn’t recall seeing a state-government-led trade mission from Georgia to Mexico, which overtook China as the state’s top trading partner in 2023. 

That could be partly because Mexico is not a major inbound investor in Georgia, but also due to perceived political risk, given how Mexico is often framed in terms of competition rather than collaboration. 

“There’s a political element to it because they are afraid of a certain backlash, which I think is unfortunate,” Mr. Diaz de Leon said. “A lot of that negative perception of Mexico is driven by political agenda, to cater to isolationist groups in the U.S. We might not like it, but it’s real; it drives it.” 

That said, he has built strong relationships, that have led to frank conversations on tough issues, from child protection and migrant rights to the flow of American-made weapons to Mexico.

“I think that here in the South is still, very strongly, a culture of personal connection. In my experience, that’s not necessarily the case in other places.” 

Stereotypes prevail on both sides, he said, with some in Mexico questioning whether he was safe in the South over the past nine years. 

Breaking down these preconceptions is the task not only of diplomats, he said, but also of citizens on both sides who seek a North American neighborhood operating on a basis of mutual respect. 

“Well, I think that’s the job, and all of us do it in a different way. It’s not at all done.”