Mexican government in
deep crisis in wake of mass protests
By Don Knowland
21 January 2017
A poll published this week
by the newspaper Reforma puts the approval rating of Mexican
President Enrique Peña Nieto at a historic low of 12 percent, down from 24
percent in December.
This plunge reflects
popular anger over Peña Nieto’s decision to raise gasoline prices on January 1
by 20 percent. The Reforma poll showed that 85 percent
disapproved of the increase, the so-called gasolinazo.
The gasoline price rise came in the wake of a
plunging peso. The peso was at 12 to the dollar when Peña Nieto took office in
December 2012. It recently reached a low of 22.50 to the dollar.
The peso’s drop has had an inflationary impact
on the prices of basic goods and foodstuffs, with the price of beans rising by
12 percent in December alone. The increase in gasoline prices will filter
throughout the economy to further stoke inflation.
A group of specialists
interviewed this week by the newspaper El Universal emphasized
that the gasolinazo will particularly impact those already on
the brink of poverty.
Héctor Villarreal, director
of the Center of Economic and Budgetary Studies, told El Universal that
the gas price hike will make the basic basket of goods inaccessible for many
families, putting around an additional 10 million at risk of falling into
poverty.
While the daily minimum wage of 80.04 pesos
(about US$3.70) went up by 9.4 percent on January 1 along with the 20 percent
increase in gas prices, that was insufficient, said Ricardo Becerra Laguna,
president of the Institute for Democratic Transition Studies, given the fuel
price hike and the fact that prices of basic goods were already on the rise.
Becerra Laguna agreed with Villareal that the rise in gas prices could create a
“nation-wide surge of impoverishment.”
The fall in the peso stemmed in large part from
a lack of confidence by investors in the Mexican economy arising from Donald
Trump’s election victory. Trump campaigned on promises to lower US corporate
taxes, place tariffs on imports from Mexico, forbid or tax remittances from
Mexicans living in the US and deport what could be upwards of 5 million
Mexicans.
Peña Nieto’s approval rating had already dropped
to 30 percent by 2015, due to corruption charges and widespread government
violence, including the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa teaching students, who
had been protesting against Peña Nieto’s education reform. It sank into the 20
percent range last summer after he invited Trump to Mexico and then fawned over
him, despite overwhelming Mexican hostility to the then Republican candidate.
Outrage was so high in Mexico that Peña Nieto
made his finance minister and close confidant Luis Videgaray, who had arranged
Trump’s visit, a sacrificial lamb, firing him soon thereafter.
Despite Videgaray being widely despised in
Mexico as a Trump conciliator, earlier this month, Peña Nieto named him as
Mexico’s new Secretary of Foreign Relations, as a sop to Trump. Trump called
Videgaray a “wonderful man.”
Earlier this week Trump stressed that he would
immediately undertake building his promised border “wall,” to be paid for by
Mexico. Although he did not expressly mention this in his inaugural address,
Trump promised to protect the US border from the “ravages” of other countries
“making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.” This
threat was directed most of all at Mexico and China.
In response, Peña Nieto was able only to express
his deepening subservience to US imperialism. He tweeted his congratulations to
Trump on taking office, calling for a “respectful dialogue” to “strengthen our
relation with shared responsibility.”
Peña Nieto even delivered a present to Trump on
the eve of his inauguration, the expedited extradition on Thursday of Sinaloa
cartel head Joaquín (“El Chapo”) Guzmán Loera to US authorities. This seemed
intended to appease Trump, who had cited drug dealing and violence as part of
his campaign against Mexican immigrants, by suggesting that that the Mexican
government was serious about combating the drug cartels rather than corrupted
by them.
Guzmán Loera had filed a
constitutional “amparo” petition with the Mexican Supreme Court in an attempt
to postpone or defeat extradition. According to the La Jornada newspaper,
the Mexican justices put denial of the amparo on a fast track in response to
pressure from the federal government. Luis Videgaray had already promised such
approval.
Mexico also announced on Thursday that Videgaray
and other Mexican dignitaries will visit Washington DC on January 25 to meet,
undoubtedly on bended knee, with key Trump administration officials, including
chief of staff Reince Priebus, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared
Kushner and senior adviser Stephen Bannon.
While some in the Mexican government have made
demagogic calls for countermeasures to Trump’s policies—Mexico’s economy
Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo suggested in the last week an immediate
“neutralizing” “fiscal response,” that is, a counter-tax—these are not serious
proposals, but rather public relations stunts. The Mexican government will
dance to Trump’s tune.
Forthcoming changes in Mexico’s energy industry
can only further destabilize the economy and the political situation. Mexico’s
energy reform law enacted in 2013 ended the monopoly of Mexico’s national oil
company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) on oil production. After bidding in 2015,
private companies began investing in oil exploration and production in Mexico.
But opening oil refining, transportation and
sales to private investment was put off to 2018, at which point the Mexican
government intended for fuel prices to be brought in line with market prices.
Until then, the government would set prices lower than the cost of production
in the country.
Federal government revenue dropped sharply when
oil prices collapsed in 2014. Despite attempts to hedge oil prices, oil revenue
dropped from 852 billion pesos (about $40 billion) in 2012 to only 408 billion
pesos in 2015. This fall in revenue was exacerbated by lowered interest in
private bidding on Mexican production contracts.
In 2016, the government decided to accelerate
the liberalization of refining and distribution of oil due to this revenue
shortfall. That resulted in the price hike and two additional tax hikes on fuel
sales on January 1.
The gas price increase on January 1 led to
demonstrations throughout the country, which included blocking highways and
fuel depots. They included teachers’ unions, transportation unions, various
social movements as well as ordinary citizens. The protests were largely
organized in a spontaneous fashion on social media, rather than by any
centralized leadership. At the same time, the movement has lacked any coherent
perspective or program.
The Mexican ruling class is too invested in the
energy reform to backtrack on it. But it fears that protests will grow even
larger, particularly if there is a violent crackdown by federal police or even
the army. The already depleted support for Peña Nieto’s Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) could completely evaporate.
The government has resorted to sham “reform”
measures as a political palliative. This week it signed with business leaders
and labor unions an “Agreement for the Economic Strengthening and Protection of
the Family Economy.” The agreement proposes various vague initiatives, such as
maintaining stable prices for basic goods, modernizing public transportation,
encouraging investment and employment and strengthening the rule of law. No one
can take these measures seriously.
Mexico’s so called opposition parties are making
every effort to suppress opposition in the Mexican populace. The right-wing
National Action Party (PAN) has called for lowering fuel prices. However, the
PAN, along with the fake “left” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD),
supported the energy reform law, and both still do.
For its part, the PRD has sought to dissipate
the protests, advocating that a million people file amparo petitions with the
Mexican Supreme Court to invalidate the gas price hikes. This is nothing more
than a stunt with no chance of success.
Finally, the National Regeneration Party, or
Morena, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for all sides and
parties to sit down in a show of “unity” to address the price rises. In other
words, this bourgeois party once again seeks to contain opposition within
bounds acceptable to the capitalist ruling establishment.
Others deeply imbedded in the Mexican ruling
class have warned that the country’s institutions are in such a state of
collapse that action at a more fundamental level is required.
Constitutional scholar
Diego Valadés, formerly a Mexican Supreme Court Justice under PRI president
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, told the magazine Proceso this week
that the “institutional apparatus” is no longer responsive to the demands of
society or able to fulfill the basic functions of the state.
Valadés has concluded, given the unprecedented
and deepening distrust of the Mexican population, that the only alternative is
the formation of a coalition government, presumably amongst all major political
parties, or a return to “authoritarianism.” Such authoritarianism likely would
extend to military intervention.
January 27, 2017
Why Mexico will pay for the wall
The debate around Donald Trump's wall has been shaped by liberal and media narratives that focus on illegal immigrants in the U.S. The left has painted a picture of compassion for these immigrants, making them the entirety of the story. Sanctuary cities have declared safe havens for illegal immigrants, without really distinguishing between the good and the bad among them. They have also spun numbers about temporarily declining immigration rates to diminish the significance of the problem. Liberals have labeled opponents of open borders hard-hearted racists. Immigration has become one of those narrative stories, filled with human suffering, compassion, and demonized enemies, that liberals love to love.
What liberals have ignored is the severe consequences of slack U.S. borders for Mexico. Mexican society and the Mexican economy have been severely distorted and held hostage for decades by criminal gangs that make their living smuggling drugs and migrants into the U.S. Their access to and control over the U.S. border are precisely what has brought them power and wealth, while unleashing a long-term scourge on Mexican society. These gangs murder, kidnap,
and extort innocent Mexican citizens. They
corrupt the Mexican police and military. They
transport illegal migrants to the U.S. – extorting,
exploiting, raping, and murdering them along the
way. They transport drugs to the U.S.,
undermining our civil society and killing our
citizens. They instill fear and violence across
Mexican society, preventing it from achieving the
stable, middle-class society that NAFTA
promised. These truths are well documented in
news reports, testimony from ranchers who own
border land, and movies.
Where is liberals' compassion, in their self-absorption and attachment to their own narratives, for the honest citizens of Mexico who are victimized in their own country by the criminal gangs fostered and financed by open U.S. borders?
Liberals have a narrative about the tons of illegal drugs these gangs transport into the U.S., too. It goes something like this: we did drugs when we were young (Choomer Obama), and it didn't harm us. Look at us now: we're running things, and isn't the world a better place? Those deplorables dying of heroin overdoses in flyover country? The real problem is the War on Drugs. If only we legalized and taxed drugs, unfortunates could get drugs easily and wouldn't have to go into debt and commit crimes to finance their habits. With the taxes, we could finance more social programs. The people who can't control themselves? We can medicalize their addictions and give them unlimited health care.
Shutting down the U.S. border will reduce or eliminate the power and wealth of these criminal gangs and their stranglehold over Mexican society. Once they no longer have access to the U.S. border, they will no longer have access to the source of their wealth and power.
Trump's wall will eliminate the reign of terror under which Mexico's honest citizens have lived for a long time. The benefits that a wall will bring to Mexican civil society and to law and order should be reasons for liberals to support Trump's wall. These benefits are also why Mexico, once it has overcome the perceived affront to its dignity, will gladly pay.
Shutting down the U.S. border will also
dramatically reduce the flow of illegal drugs
into the U.S., with all their negative economic
and social consequences.
I'm waiting for a liberal to argue against these benefits, but I haven't found one yet.
CAUTION!
HERE IS THE MEXICO POURING OVER OUR OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS AND HAULING BACK BILLIONS FROM HEROIN SALES!
GRAPHIC IMAGES of America coming under Mex Occupation
The NARCOMEX drug cartels now operate in all major American cities and haul back to NARCOMEX between $40 top $60 BILLION from sales of HEROIN!
ILLEGALS & WELFARE
70% OF ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
“According to the Centers for Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican illegal alien families receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”
CIS
REVOLUTION IN MEXICO: Will It Spread Over America’s Open Borders?
LOS ANGELES: Mexico’s Second Largest City, First Place for Billion Dollar Mexican Welfare, Number 1 for Mexican Murder and Western Gateway For the LA RAZA Mexican Drug Cartels
TEXAS GOV FIGHTS BACK LA RAZA MEX OCCUPATION!
WHY ARE ILLEGALS ABOVE THE LAW?
SANCTUARY CITIES and SANCTUARY STATE of CALIFORNIA: The LA RAZA welfare state on our backs!
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly
returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico
without firing a single shot." --
- EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of
Mexico
REMITTANCES ….. are only part of Mexico’s
looting… and billions for anchor baby breeders,
billions for heroin sales and then do the numbers!
Mexicans abroad sent home nearly $2.4 billion in transfers in November, 24.7 percent higher than a year earlier, marking their fastest pace of expansion since March 2006, according to Mexican central bank data on Monday…
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