By Matthew Ehret for the Saker Blog

On July 8, Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador met with President Trump to finalize the death of NAFTA and the signing of the USMCA agreement which has thrown over the apple cart for the neoliberal priests of London and Wall Street.

As both Presidents signed a ‘Joint Declaration between the USA and Mexico’, Trump stated: “With this signing, we pledge the close and continued friendship between the United States and Mexico, and we accelerate our progress toward an even greater tomorrow … two sovereign nations thriving, growing, and excelling side by side, working together…. The potential for the future of the United States and Mexico is unlimited.”

The importance of these events has a powerful historic relevance that very few comprehend (due in no small part to the anti-Trump movement which has clouded a few too many brains these past few years). The death of NAFTA and the reassertion of sovereignty and the rejection of green depopulation by both leaders has ensured that both nations-long believed conquered by the financial oligarchy for decades may still have within them the moral fitness to survive.

President Obrador has placed US-Mexico relations within a much longer arc of history by showcasing the positive and oft-forgotten anti-imperial alliances that have shaped North American history with a focus upon the Mexican Presidents Juarez, Cárdenas and Obrador who stood up courageously at different points in time to the financial oligarchy- often with the support and help of like-minded US Presidents who shared in their struggle, namely: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and one controversial yet important figure in American politics whom I will bring in shortly.

Standing at the Juarez memorial in Washington D.C on July 7, President Obrador stated:

“The best President Mexico has ever had, Benito Juárez García, as you have mentioned, had a good understanding with the great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. Let us remember that this great, historic leader of the United States, who was the promoter of the abolition of slavery, never recognized Emperor Maximilian, who was imposed on Mexico through the intervention of the powerful French army.. The same thing happened with the splendid relationship that Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had with our patriot President, General Lázaro Cárdenas.”

Trump amplified Obrador’s message saying:

“The tradition of great respect between Mexican and American Presidents goes back to the early days of both of our nations. And, in particular, it includes President Abraham Lincoln and President Benito Juárez, who each held one another in very, very high esteem. They were great friends and they did great things together. And we are grateful that, this morning, President López Obrador laid a wreath at the memorials that stand to each of these leaders, right here in our nation’s capital.”

The Case of Lincoln and Juarez

By 1865, Lincoln’s use of national banking practices (the Greenback) was instrumental in saving the union from British-orchestrated Civil War- although his assassination hampered this momentum to full industrial reconstruction of the south.

During this time, Britain, French and Spanish Hapsburg empires had initiated parallel wars to destroy the newly emerging Mexican republic then led by Lincoln-admiring president Benito Juarez, first with the 1858-1860 War of Reform and then 1862-1867 French Invasion. In spite of this existential challenge, Juarez succeeded in driving out the imperialists with political and military support from Lincoln patriots in America, while also imposing tariffs which encouraged the build-up of industry- liberating Mexico from its status as cash cropping exporter. Social and educational reforms elevating the health and welfare of the people grew enormously under Juarez’s leadership.

Describing a US-Mexico policy of mutual respect and development in 1865, Juarez stated:

“Should that Republic soon end its Civil War, and acting as a friend and not a master, wish to lend us aid in the form of money or force, without demanding humiliating conditions, without our sacrificing one inch of our territory, without undermining our national dignity, we would accept it, and we have given confidential instructions to our minister to that effect. It would appear that there is no option but to continue the struggle with what we have, with whatever we can, and as far as we can. That is our duty: Time and perseverance shall help us. Forward then! No one should lose heart!”

Although Lincoln republicans supported Mexico’s sovereignty in opposition to foreign empires, the death of McKinley in 1902 saw a grievous abuse of the Monroe Doctrine which too often became an imperial hammer to subdue banana republics as seen under the brutal leadership of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge.

This was a period of cancerous Anglo-American growth guided by the structure of the Milner-Rhodes Round Table Movement which established the League of Nations, gave rise to a London-directed fascist machine in Europe, the USA, Canada and even Mexico, and prepared to consolidated a global bankers’ dictatorship as a “solution” to the Great Depression.

Then the unthinkable happened, and a pro-Lincoln, anti-fascist reflex within America slapped the oligarchy across the face and the bankers’ dictatorship plans of 1933 came undone as Franklin Roosevelt stated: “The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.”

In an earlier speech, FDR properly attacked the Wall Street takeover of the republican party, and stated “I think it is time for us Democrats to claim Lincoln as one of our own”.

Roosevelt and Cárdenas

Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to push back against the pro-empire Wall Street crowd since McKinley’s murder which he brought in with the Good Neighbor Policy stating:

“In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.”

FDR broke from his puppet predecessors by supporting Mexico’s rights to control its own oil and resources (after President Cárdenas, expropriated foreign oil holdings) and also vastly expanded credit from the US Export-Import Bank to fund massive Mexican infrastructure projects with a focus on water, energy and transport. This served as one of the earliest international extensions of the New Deal which FDR intended would liberate all nations of the earth from colonialism.

In 1943, FDR told Congress: “The policy of the Good Neighbor has shown such success in the hemisphere of the Americas that its extension to the whole world seems to be the logical next step.”

As I outlined in my FDR’s Anti- Colonial Vision for the Post-War World, the great leader had clashed repeatedly with the racist degenerate Churchill over the terms of the post-war world and intended to fully wipe the evil vestiges of colonialism forever from the face of the earth through an internationalization of his New Deal. FDR’s grand design was much more in harmony with the win-win Belt and Road Initiative today and even though certain sociopathic bankers would argue otherwise, has no connection in truth to the “Green New Deal” depopulation agenda which is ironically just a eugenics-based bankers dictatorship under a new name.

FDR’s early death on April 12, 1945 and the takeover of American foreign policy by Britain’s deep state crushed his grand design as Stalin lamented “the great dream has died.”

A new era of CIA-run coups, and a recolonization program under the City of London/Wall Street controlled World Bank and IMF created a new evil system of debt slavery and exploitation under a program which Churchill called “British brains enforced by American brawn”.

This system of global enslavement, depopulation, deregulation, and nation-stripping destroyed all resistance along the way (including several great American statesmen) and courageous Mexican leadership was few and far between during these Cold War years… until President Portillo was elected.

The Case of Lopez Portillo

Standing defiantly against the empire of Wall Street and the City of London, Portillo recognized that his nation had been targeted for depopulation and destruction. Henry Kissinger’s 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) had outlined 13 developing nations who aspired to end their colonial scars by following the Japan model of advanced scientific and technological progress. Kissinger’s bone chilling report stated that should these nations succeed, then they would cause an overpopulation crisis. America’s duty, in Kissinger’s twisted mind, had to become wired towards a strict policy of de-population using every mechanism available with a focus on economic warfare. Mexico was at the top of this list.

Trapped under years of conditionality-laden loans from the IMF and World Bank, Mexico and other nations of the Global South were trapped under usurious debts, underdevelopment (loans were given on the condition that money would rarely be spent on any advanced infrastructure or industrialization), and poverty with no hope in sight.

Lopez Portillo was trapped. But unlike many others at this time, he didn’t give up.

In order to escape this trap, several major (yet little known) decisions were made by Portillo at this time which led into his declaration of war against the oligarchy.

How Portillo Played the LaRouche Card

The first major decision occurred when Portillo invited American economist Lyndon LaRouche to the Presidential Palace at Los Pinos in May 1982 where after a long meeting, Portillo requested the economist draft a policy program for Mexico’s resistance to the empire and broader economic recovery. This program was given to Portillo in August 1982 entitled Operation Juarez (named after Mexico’s first revolutionary President Benito Juarez).

Within weeks, Portillo followed the advice of LaRouche and attempted to gain the support of Argentina and Brazil to stand together against the oligarchy using their most powerful weapon: The debt bomb (a threat to default on their usurious debts). On September 1, 1982, Portillo nationalized the banks of Mexico to the ire of the financial oligarchy.

Portillo moved quickly to nationalize much of Mexico’s oil while preparing for capital controls to combat speculation, and manoeuvred to use Mexico’s oil revenues to maximize advanced technological growth in agriculture and nuclear energy as outlined in detail in Operation Juarez. Then came Portillo’s greatest moment when on October 1st 1982, he stood for all people of the earth at the United Nations in speech which must be heard to be believed.

In his speech Portillo said:

“The most constant concern and activity of Mexico in the international arena, is the transition to a New Economic Order…. We developing countries do not want to be subjugated. We cannot paralyze our economies or plunge our peoples into greater misery in order to pay a debt on which servicing tripled without our participation or responsibility, and with terms that are imposed upon us. We countries of the South are about to run out of playing chips, and were we not able to stay in the game, it would end in defeat for everyone. I want to be emphatic: We countries of the South have not sinned against the world economy. Our efforts to grow, in order to conquer hunger, disease, ignorance, and dependency, have not caused the international crisis….

“We have been a living example of what occurs when an enormous, volatile, and speculative mass of capital goes all over the world in search of high interest rates, tax havens, and supposed political and exchange stability. It decapitalizes entire countries and leaves destruction in its wake. The world should be able to control this; it is inconceivable that we cannot find a formula that, without limiting necessary movements and flows, would permit regulation of a phenomenon that damages everyone. It is imperative that the New International Economic Order establish a link between refinancing the development of countries that suffer capital flight, and the capital that has fled.

“The reduction of available credit for developing countries has serious implications, not only for the countries themselves, but also for production and employment in the industrial countries. Let us not continue in this vicious circle: it could be the beginning of a new medieval Dark Age, without the possibility of a Renaissance….”

Ultimately, without the support of a debtors alliance for progress, Portillo’s plans were sabotaged under a barrage of speculative attacks on the peso which drove his plans into the ground, and his nation into turmoil and economic hell for the next 40 years. Those nations which were too cowardly to stand alongside Portillo suffered as gravely as did Mexico in the coming decades*.

During the last 3 minutes of this video, Portillo is featured at a conference in 1998 sitting beside LaRouche’s wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche (chairwoman of the Schiller Institute). In this recording one can listen to the old statesman describe his 1982 battle and his debt to the LaRouches:

“I congratulate Doña Helga for these words, which impressed me, especially because first they trapped me in the Apocalypse, but then she showed me the staircase by which we can get to a promised land. Many thanks, Doña Helga.

Doña Helga—and here I wish to congratulate her husband, Lyndon LaRouche…. And it is now necessary for the world to listen to the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche. Now it is through the voice of his wife, as we have had the privilege to hear.

How important, that they enlighten us as to what is happening in the world, as to what will happen, and as to what can be corrected. How important, that someone dedicates their time, their generosity, and their enthusiasm to this endeavor.”

It is noteworthy, that less than one year before Portillo spoke these words, Helga LaRouche presented a program entitled the New Silk Road to a conference in Beijing calling for a new system of economic development corridors and sea routs to be developed by China’s government as a means of breaking other nations free from neo-colonialism. A selection from a 1997 Washington Conference features an incredible preview into the Chinese Grand design which has come to life over two decades later under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

Franklin Roosevelt Inspires Mexico’s AMLO

Upon his election in 2018, President Obrador announced the first phase of his New Deal with an “Every Young Person to Work” program inspired by FDR which he described saying:

“I have had this idea since I read how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pulled the United States out of the 1930s’ crisis. What did he do, in a tremendous economic crisis? He decided to put the whole U.S. people to work. And he decided to put young people to work, and he paid them a dollar a day, for every young person. But his idea was full employment. That is, a job for everyone. That idea stuck in my head, because Roosevelt lifted the United States out of the crisis, and for me, he was therefore, if not the best President, one of the best that the United States has had—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by that action, by that decision. Now we are going to do something similar: All young people to work.”

Under NAFTA, Mexico was kept down by acting as cheap labor market to do the work once done by high paid Americans and Canadians. This policy ultimately hurt Mexico since free trade’s obsession with low costs resulted in keeping quality of life and production dismally low. (The formula “Low prices= low paid workers= better slaves= weakened nations” is as true today as it was 250 years ago when the British Empire commissioned Adam Smith to write his 1776 Wealth of Nations).

Obrador’s efforts are moving in the right direction to align with Trump on killing NAFTA, reviving national banking (Obrador plans on creating 13 000 national bank branches to become conduits of public credit) are a big step in the right direction. Responding to the monetarist priests howling at the sacrilege of national banking, Obrador stated:

“We’re going to speak with those from the Bank of México respecting the autonomy of the Bank of México. We have to educate them because for them this is an anachronism, even sacrilege, because they have other ideas. But we’ve arrived here [in government] after telling the people that the neoliberal economic policy was going to change.”

Thus, taking over responsibility from the usurious private banking network and Mexican Central Bank which have converted Mexico into an indebted colony of crime and despair since the overthrow of President Portillo in 1982 is a vital next step in the fight. This is the same apparatus that President Juarez did battle with in the 19th Century and which Cardenas stood up to during WWII. It never went away and faced very little opposition globally after Portillo’s death… until China announced the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 which has quickly evolved into a powerful anti-colonial grand design tied closely to Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and incorporating over 130 nations into its framework… including 17 South American/Caribbean nations already.

It is important to recall that even though Mexico and the USA currently have many obstacles between them and the New Silk Road, they are both led by two leaders who have struggled with the deep state structures within their nations and who would be very open to collaborating with the new multipolar system led by China and Russia as an alternative to burning in the meltdown of the western financial system. The spirits of great leaders like Lincoln, Juarez, FDR, Cardenas, Portillo and LaRouche would certainly smile at this emerging potential.

BIO: Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation .