 On November 11, 2006, he was elected president of the Christian Democrat Organization of America, a post he held until July 30, 2010, and between 2006 and 2009, he also was the vice president of Centrist Democrat International.However, during this time, a rift began to grow between Espino and the PAN president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa; he also disagreed with the federal government's security strategy, calling it "one of the bloodiest".The end of Espino's presidency in 2007 and his replacement with Germán Martínez Cázares, identified as close to Calderón, came months after Espino and those associated with the highly conservative group Desarrollo Humano Integral, A.C., lost national party positions to supporters of Calderón.