The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

November 18, 2020/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

AMLO: Just ‘Biden’ His Time

What’s taking Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador so long to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the White House? Donald Trump has spent four bull-in-the-china-shop years knocking over priceless heirlooms of national and international design and tradition, wreaking havoc all over the world. And México has rated among his favorite whipping boys. Wouldn’t AMLO want to be first in line to celebrate Trump’s defeat?

US progressives and leftists, especially in communities of color, busted our butts to help Biden win. We worked just as hard as we had for the progressives who ran against him in the primaries. After four years stepping backward on the Monopoly board of US politics, we knew we couldn’t afford to give up any more ground.

For many of us, AMLO’s silence on Biden’s victory has felt like a personal affront, a not surprising sentiment given the amount of work we put into this election and the stress we felt waiting for the final ballot-box tallies. But our response may have been less about Biden and more about us.

We really wanted our friends in other countries, progressives like AMLO, to share our sense of accomplishment. And in defeating Trump we did indeed accomplish something vitally important, including turning out a huge Mexican American vote for Biden, as veteran activist Valentin Ramirez notes in this issue’s Voices interview. But Biden has never, as AMLO and all of us know, been a progressive. With his win, we recover some of the steps we lost on that Monopoly board. No more, no less.

In effect, we've strategically gained four years to strengthen and unify the newly energized voters our intensive relationship building has organized in so many communities.

And if AMLO needs to “bide his time” for however long the judges take to announce who won the match, so be it! Biden himself had to bide his time to become President, after losing bids in 1988 and 2008. So let’s take the time we need to accomplish our task ahead: to help create cause for celebration on both sides of the border.

Valentin Ramirez began working at a maquila at age 16 and joined his first worker protest when that US-owned business shut down without letting the workers know or paying the wages owed. Jobless, he made his way to the US to join a sister. Ramirez, always an activist, currently serves as the spokesperson for Cocio Guelaguetza San Diego, a cultural coalition that brings together Oaxacan indigenous communities.

Progressives around the world felt jubilant when Biden beat Trump, but Andrés Manuel López Obrador kept strangely silent. Why?

Valentin Ramirez: México has a policy toward foreign countries — the Estrada Doctrine — that doesn’t allow it to put its nose into the affairs of other nations. It’s a way of leading by example. So many times other countries have meddled with México’s own elections. México doesn’t want to do the same and refuses to work for or endorse any candidate or party abroad. This policy shows respect and a desire for peace. Recently, for example, México granted asylum to Evo Morales, the leftist Brazilian leader, when he was deposed by a right-wing coup. But México also granted asylum to a conservative politician who opposed the leftist Venezuelan President Maduro, Hugo Chavez’ successor.

AMLO also has to be especially careful with his relationship to the US. With Trump, he played to his ego, hoping to let as few bees out of the nest as possible. And Trump still has two months to go. AMLO still has to be careful not to get stung.

But didn’t AMLO know that his silence might be seen as support for Trump?

Whether to say “congratulations” is not the most important thing to AMLO. When I was a kid, I left my rural village at 12 to go to school in the city. I had no money and was hungry most of the time. The money my dad could afford to send me could only last two days out of the week. Now, under AMLO, 70 percent of the people are getting benefits from the Mexican government. Kids don’t have to go through what I went through. AMLO is focusing on his own people, and that’s why 80 percent of the people support him. His relationship with the US does not affect that support at home.

Many are surprised that any Mexican-American would vote for Trump! Does their vote mean they don’t support AMLO?

Eighty percent of Mexican-Americans voted Democrat. But the Trump campaign did a good job of confusing the people. For one thing, they painted Biden as a socialist. My grandfather, a small farmer, used to say, “Be careful, the next President might be a socialist. I don’t want to give my cow to the government.” He had heard things about Cuba that scared him. But global capitalism and food imports later undercut local farmers — and that forced my grandfather to sell his cows and his farm!

AMLO remains very popular among Mexican-Americans. For one reason: Because of the new benefits their parents are receiving, Mexicans in the US do not need to send as much money home. The Trump campaign exploited AMLO’s popularity. Trump made it look like AMLO endorsed him. His campaign used photos of the two of them side by side with the caption, “The two best world leaders!”

What will test US/Mexico relations as Biden takes office?

Oil! AMLO has been quietly stopping the privatization of the oil industry begun by former President Pena Nieto — a privatization that has us seeing US Shell and British BP stations instead of the Mexican Pemex — and Trump has not been paying attention. But both Republican and Democratic officials in Texas, led by US senator Ted Cruz, have written a letter of protest charging that AMLO, by giving preference to state-owned oil companies, is threatening US energy investments in Mexico and violating the new NAFTA. No one believes that a Democrat in the White House means that AMLO will be able to do what’s best for México.

That Biden Rates as More Decorous than Trump Not Enough

If México wants a healthy and mutually supportive bilateral relationship, it is critical that it implement urgent changes in the way it relates to the United States, regardless of who the president is. Nothing ensures that Biden will make decisions aligned with the interests of México. His economic policy has clear protectionist overtones that could strongly discourage investment in other countries. His platform calls for “bringing home supply chains” and retaining millions of manufacturing jobs in the United States. A rhetoric close to that of Trumpism.

In terms of immigration, Biden has promised comprehensive immigration reform and has been clear that he will reverse Trump's changes. But this is not even remotely enough... And, if the Democrats don't win the Senate, everything will continue like this for the next four years.

The electoral result is good news for Mexico but, above all, it is a warning: No matter which party is in power, it is not the United States that must change, but it is México that needs to modify its way of doing basic bilateral politics to have results. The changes must go in two directions.

First, México must take seriously the work of engaging in politics, lobbying, and mobilization among US congressmen and local politicians. The most important regulatory changes in the United States are not achieved by convincing the current president but by having congresspeople and allied governors who understand the value of implementing a favorable agenda towards México. México must deploy an unprecedented strategy to find and convince US congresspeople of the economic benefits of a flexible immigration policy, of a strict regulation of the sale of arms at the border — a decisive factor in the increase in violence in México — and to invest in cleaning up the environmental mess on the border.

Second, México must move from being a country where bilateral politics is defined in the “room next door” or in closed negotiations between wealthy businessmen and politicians and must become one where ordinary civil society is involved in designing relations between the two countries.

Mexican civil society, organized workers, and migrant groups must find allies in the progressive factions of the Democratic Party to push for policies that foster bilateral relations that raise wages and protect the environment.

Nor is it enough for the USMCA, the new trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada, to protect union organizing (in Mexico). Unions must be reconstituted trilaterally, operating in all three countries and organizing across borders.

We must get serious about persuading US state and local politics to achieve a more balanced relationship between México and the world's greatest power, its neighbor to the north.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Cecilia Ballí, Don’t Call Texas’s Latino Voters the “Sleeping Giant,” Texas Monthly. These voters are waiting to be heard — and fully understood.

Kurt Hackbarth, The US Cannot Whitewash Away Its Role in the Mexican “War on Drugs,” Jacobin. Justice for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war on drugs means prosecuting American officials complicit all along, not just involved Mexican officials.

David Agren, Killing of reporter adds to grim toll of violence against Mexican journalists, Guardian. Eight Mexican journalists have been killed so far this year.

From car protests to a phantom sit-in: FRENAAA, the anti-AMLO movement that was not, Explica. What’s driving anti-AMLO protests? Not much subtlety. Roared one recent protest sign: “I want a place where my servants are not my authority.”

Kevin Sieff, With its leader in jail, this city cowered to his will, Washington Post. A chilling case study in municipal corruption in Morelos state.

Devin Randall, Conservative Mexican State Puebla Legalized Gay Marriage, Instinct. With Morena now the leading party in the state, the traditionally conservative state of Puebla has become the 20th of the 32 Mexican states to update its civil codes.

Mary Anastasia O´Grady, México’s Assault on Energy Investors, Wall Street Journal. An example of how Corporate America is freaking out as AMLO moves to save and protect México’s state-owned oil firm PEMEX and the CFE national electrical utility.

Christopher Lenton, López Obrador Energy Policies Seen as Main Risk to New Era of Mexico-U.S. Bilateral Ties, Natural Gas Intelligence. More corporate hand-wringing over López Obrador pushing to undo changes made during the previous government that opened the energy sector to private exploitation.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

Web page and application support for the México Solidarity Project from NOVA Web Development, a democratically run, worker-owned and operated cooperative focused on developing free software tools for progressive organizations.