Oil: The Great Pitfall

La Jornada 

By John Saxe - Fernández

Americas Program Original Translation 

Diego Valadés, of the Institute of Legal Research of the UNAM, warned the Senate about the risk involved in opening Pemex when Mexico is part of NAFTA and could be forced to give preferential contracts to companies (U.S.), or risk involvement in an international controversy if they refuse. The matter takes on unusual importance and urgency if we consider that since October 2012 Mexico has been negotiating their participation in the Trans-Pacifc Partnership Agreement (TPP) which, according to leaked documents, grants rights and privileges to corporations in investment, land, natural resources, and industries in order to disable state enterprises, with the intention to reverse the vast and dynamic geo-economic and political projection of the Chinese state sector.

The notion of renegotiating the Mexico’s petro-electric clause in NAFTA protected by Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution, had been placed in Peña Nieto’s agenda by John D. Negroponte ( JDN ), U.S. ambassador during the negotiation of NAFTA and former director of the National Intelligence Council , governing body of imperial espionage . In October 2010 Negroponte said from Toluca that it was time to seek new ways of working through the negotiation of a second phase (NAFTA) and that the... delicate matter ... needed to be put on the table. He was referring to the energy sector, a key card in the presidential succession processes for plundering the nation. EPN came to Los Pinos at the culmination of the intentional weakening of Pemex started in 1983, so that by the end of 2011 and to the delight of the White House and the greats (ExxonMobil, Chevron, etc.) during their U.S. tour, offered to open the energy sector, endorsing U.S. business design and national security.

Crime Explodes — But an Economy Booms

By: Deborah Caldwell, CNBC:

The Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the bodies of nine people were found hanging from a bridge and another 14 decapitated and dumped near city hall last May — the result of a turf war between Mexican drug cartels.

The murders exposed the Mexican government’s significant problems; its seemingly out of control violence and its public relations problem —keeping the country’s violence level low enough not to scare away foreign investors.

“When they’re hanging people off bridges — it’s the visual of this. The drug cartels make it gruesome intentionally,” said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

As a result, when U.S. corporations consider expanding south of the border, Mexico is rarely their country of first choice, he said. Yet after doing research, “they find it’s not as bad as they thought,” Selee said. Then these same companies build a plant or establish a corporate office and watch their investments take off. (More: Mexico's Image Problem With Tourists)

And that is the paradox of Mexico. On one hand, the country’s well-publicized drug killings would appear to be a clear disincentive to foreign investment. On the other hand, the economy has become an under-the-radar economic juggernaut. Read more.