Andrés Manuel López Obrador provoked a controversy almost from the beginning of the administration: downplay the opinion of international economic organizations such as World bank, IMF, OECD, IDB, transnational banks and risk rating agencies.

He went further and questioned them for the double standards with which they are handled. For example Pemex survived in a sea of corruption and bad decisions while the rating agencies looked the other way or said everything was going well; now that it is improving and restarting, the slogans and negative qualifications that later magnify and out of context the opposition and the media fall like rain.

For the president and some non aligned analysts, these organizations must be treated rigorously to prevent them from playing the role they have played for decades, which is that of gangters in the economy by pressing presidents and buying politicians to achieve their goals: placing credits in unpayable conditions; dominate the administrations and establish the neoliberal agenda such as the privatization of public companies, concessions and laws so that they favor the private sector such as labor flexibility.

The newspaper El Economista on September 12,2013 published a note in which its first lines say: “the credibility of the risk rating agencies collapsed together with the investment bank Lehman Brother son Spetember 15,2008”. Recall that this fact caused a global crisis.

More recently, El Financiero published on April 24, 2017 a heading that says: “the rating agencies continue to operate with complete impunity.” ”They began to be questioned when the financial collapse of the oil giant” Enron”, which, days before its bankruptcy, was rated triple “A”, the highest degree of investment”.

These two jewels of the Crown of the rating agencies are still pending, they ramain in the air and leave it to oblivion so that they continue to fall unsuspecting to support their predictions that, to be realistic, emit them with some frecuency to pressure governments to play in favor of their interests and those of the United States of North America.

Regarding organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, Inter-American Development, and the World Bank, let´s look at the experience of Ecuador and its president Rafael Correa, who had to expel the representative of the World Bank of his country because he was blackmailing his government.

In the XXI Ibero-American Summit held in Paraguay in Octorber 2011, Correa went further and after denouncing the evento to the plenary, he rose from the table to protest against Pamela Cox was going to give a “chair” to the attendees. Annoyed demanded to apologize for Ecuador and for the rest of the countries to whom they also pressed to impose their “neo-colonialist” measures.

The scenario that Rafael Correa lived from the beginning of his mandate is very similar to that faced by López Obrador, with pressure from all these organizations from the opposition and a constant media disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion: it is worth mentioning that social media today play a fundamental role in counteracting these boycotts.

Rafael Correa is a rebel of the economy: a doctorate at Yale, the financiers expected him to govern with neoliberalism, but it was quite the opposite and as one of his first measures was to restructure his debt, no even pay, bet on increasing national production and increase in the population´s capacity to consume. He obtained the best credit rating in the history of Ecuador.

The result was to end the debt and the slogan of not again requesting a dollar of credit from the IMF, the World Bank or the IDB, much les from private banks based in the United States of North America.

The press burned in the same way and they questioned him that if he did not cover the debt they would not lend him again, to which he replied that if he paid more than he received, what was the point of maintaining that debt. After a difficult period the debt was covered and the bankers were looking to give him loans in much more favorable conditions, which he rejected.

When López Obrador said that he had “other figures”, he set fire to the media and the weak opponents who considered what was said by rating agencies such as Standar & Poor´s and others as if they were lines of the Bible, almost written by the hand of God; a whole capital sin to doubt his sacred words.

There was even a recently created Mexican rating agency that also predicted economic storms if López Obrador won. After the ridicule it made and discovering that it had ties to the president´s detractors it practically disappeared.

Therefore, it is not such a bad idea to legislate to regulate the work of these rating agencies and they can be held accountable and do not play the role of gangsters in the service of dark interests.

It must be recognized that al lof these organizations have a relevant role at the global level, but it must also be recognized that historically they have played in the interests of the US, and other powers, likewise, of the large transnationals that have made fortunes of “peripheral” countries such as Mexico.

Lopez Obrador cannot fall for his game and must keep Mexico as a sovereign country.

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Staff

Translator: Víctor Colín