Antonio Navalón
The 21st century, the century of enlightenment, communication, culture, and the century in which we have been more informed – even if more ignorant than ever – offers new perspectives and ways of living from many points of view. The whole world is rearranging itself. Or perhaps it is culminating in its disorder. But it is practically impossible for the world to continue as we knew it.
At present, Mexico is in a situation in which I am convinced that the President knows what he is doing. Although, from the outside, it is tough to understand the true intentions and justifications of the Mexican leader’s actions. Internally, there are many issues to be resolved and clarified, such as, for example, what we are doing with the economy. And, externally, what is the role we seek to play in the world?
A few months ago, we fought and demanded a public apology from one of our most important trading partners: Spain. The Spaniards have more than six thousand five hundred companies in Mexico, creating wealth in our territory but exporting it to their pockets. In the eyes of President López Obrador, the Spaniards owe us an explanation and a pardon for having been a colonizing power and for the abuses perpetrated during the conquest. On this occasion, I agree because if Queen Elizabeth II of England was able to apologize to South Africa for Apartheid, I do not understand why the King of Spain could not apologize for the abuses committed. After all, these are behaviors and actions carried out five hundred years ago by subjects and a Royal House that is not even his own.
Spain is Mexico’s second-largest investor country, while our country is responsible for many of the income statements of the major Spanish companies. To dimension the importance of this relationship, it is necessary to mention that Spain is the second country from which Mexico receives the most foreign direct investment, only surpassed by the United States, and is one of Mexico’s primary – if not the most essential – trading partners in Europe. In addition, it is important to highlight that last year alone, more than 2.6 billion dollars came to our country from Spain.
I do not know how many jobs are generated by these more than six thousand five hundred Spanish companies installed in Mexico. I know how much our country gives to Spain, although, as with any relationship, the exchange should be beneficial for both. As if we did not have enough with this front of confrontation with the Spanish – which is very important and delicate – now we have opened another front of much more serious conflict. And it is so because it is not only a confrontation in which we will surely end up demanding a justification and an apology from them but also because there is a lot at stake on this front. A confrontation that arises in our country under the protection of a reform – whether the President likes it or not – was legal according to how both the Congress and the political and public powers that governed the six-year term from 2012 to 2018 were constituted.
Energy plays a key role in the readjustment and reinvention of our country. We must not forget that in the Fourth Transformation, the Presidents that are held as examples to follow are Benito Juárez and Lázaro Cárdenas. General Cárdenas was the man who nationalized oil. Following his example, our President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, wants to nationalize energy so that it will no longer be exploited or stolen by modern colonizing powers. As the President of Mexico repeatedly repeats – rightly or wrongly – Mexico is nobody’s colony, and he is doing everything he can to clarify that argument.
The Mexican President has the right to change his mind. He was also entitled not to sign the USMCA. It was his right to impose the conditions of retroactivity considering the global impact on the United States and Canada and that they had to accept the proclamation of our independence if they wanted to deal with us. Above all, they should accept it based on the two sacred institutions our President seems to appreciate the most: the state oil company (Pemex) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). However, he did none of this. He signed a treaty in which, if he did not read what he was signing, it would be inadmissible, and if he did read it, we must understand that when he signed it, he was willing to abide by it. However, after two years of waiting, wanting to understand, and going back and forth to the source, the pitcher has broken.
Right now, our two USMCA partners know that we do not like them and that their way of doing things is not ours. But, above all, it is clear that for our President, the future and the success of the 4T lies in the redefinition of the principle of national sovereignty based on the energy aspect. As a consequence, everything signed so far, all the legal validity of the Peña Nieto reform, and everything that happened before is something that must be denounced, burned, and not complied with.
Regarding remittances, which is money that our compatriots earn in the United States since they cannot earn it in our country and which is the money with which their relatives living in Mexico feed themselves and live, it is expected that this year a figure of more than fifty billion dollars will be obtained. This is a subject that President López Obrador, morning after morning, loves to congratulate himself on. However, I am sure he knows that remittances are instead proof of our economic failure. Remittances are proof of the success of our compatriots and their perseverance and effort to struggle in one of the most competitive countries in the world. Although I am sure that if we were to ask those who send those remittances where they would prefer to work, they would answer here in Mexico. The problem is that in our country, they would not have jobs or the resources to feed their families.
In 2021, the commercial exchange between the United States and Mexico was more than six hundred sixty-one billion dollars, the largest exchange registered to date and consolidating itself as our leading commercial partner. On the other hand, last year, bilateral trade between Mexico and Canada was more than thirty-three billion dollars, a figure that allowed us to become their third largest trading partner.
The economic reality of Mexicans has had great support since the North American Free Trade Agreement, also known as NAFTA, was signed. Since those times, there has been a security and a basis when dealing and negotiating the preferential commercial relationship with our neighbors to the North, although, above all, with our main commercial partner. However, all this seems to be of no importance, and since it is very difficult to think that we are going to go back to dirt roads, that we can close the airports because we are going to stop flying and go back to having the horse as the national means of transportation, inevitably I have no choice but to think and hope that the President has an alternative plan. And the fact is that if President López Obrador ends up abandoning the USMCA or forces and asks for things that cannot be given, with what, or rather, with whom will he replace the preferential trade relationship we have with the United States and Canada? Perhaps it will do so by signing a preferential trade agreement with China. Or, he will probably opt to increase the economic, political, and all-round relationship with Russia. What does the President plan to do?
Is this a scenario that the global geopolitical situation and the domestic situation of our neighbors to the North allowed to happen? From my point of view, no. We are waiting for a miracle. I believe that the miracle – as in the case of the Spaniards – is that they understand that it is better to be good, ask for forgiveness, and listen to us in everything we ask for. At the end of the day, as the songs of Jorge Negrete and Vicente Fernández say, “amor con amor se paga” (Love is paid with love) and “como México no hay dos” (there are no two like Mexico).
We are waiting for a miracle. The question is: will it come?
