Daniel Marmolejo is a respected investigative journalist and winner of the 2019 National Journalism Award in Mexico. He is widely known for his coverage of and questions addressed to President López Obrador during his daily morning press conferences—the famous Las mañaneras through which the President speaks directly to the Mexican people. He is the producer of the “Hybrid Warfare” documentary series, as well as The Incorruptible YouTube program. Mr. Marmolejo spoke in Spanish by videotape to Panel 2, “The Strategic Crisis Facing the Human Race,” of the Schiller Institute’s March 20-21 conference, “The World at a Crossroad—Two Months into the Biden Administration.”

The recent visit of Argentine President Alberto Fernández to Mexico occurred at a very special moment: the re-establishment of a democratic order in Bolivia with President Luis Arce; the dismantling of “lawfare” against Argentina’s former President and current Vice-President, Cristina Fernández; and the end of the nightmare of “lawfare” against ex-President Lula [Luiz Inácio da Silva] of Brazil.

Argentina is not in good shape: the debt of a century, incurred by the neoliberal ex-President Mauricio Macri, had repercussions during the official visit of Fernández to Mexico. In Mexico’s Presidential Palace, Fernández criticized the business deals which had happened under the protection of the earlier government and the role of the mass media. He emphasized that the debt incurred by the South American country had been spread out to the open hands of the friends of Mauricio Macri. The legacy left by the PRO in Argentina and the PRIAN in Mexico (which are the names we have for the most corrupt political parties who have alternated in political power), are a dramatic example of unheard of levels of rapacity, where marketing strategies were used to gain power and then were used during the collapse.

The situation in these countries is one where the judiciary is waging a battle of resistance, protecting old hegemonic interests, with the press operating on behalf of local and supranational elites.

Argentina and Mexico are now constructing a new regional vanguard model, although the international opposition and globalist groups are trying to destroy the political projects which democracy has launched. In Argentina, the main opposition is in the agro-industrial sector and a corrupt judicial system. In Mexico, we have an elite which doesn’t want to pay taxes, nor accept a regulatory framework contrary to their economic interests—such as in the case of the Texcoco airport, which was revoked by [President Andrés Manuel] López Obrador in favor another airport named Felipe Ángeles, which will be inaugurated shortly, on a former military air base.

Although the media are playing an evil role, trying to undermine the efforts and achievements of the Latin American heads of state, the democratic bonus has to be taken full advantage of. President López Obrador understands that effective communication occurs directly in his daily “morning press conferences,” where he presents the agenda of “what’s important to discuss,” clarifies doubts, corrects ill-intentioned information, states his views as a citizen, empathizes and polemicizes, and presents the great infrastructure projects of his 4T [Fourth Transformation] government.

This kind of communication has made it possible for him to do battle against the powers that be, who constantly try to undermine the president’s popular support, using strategies typical of hybrid warfare. Argentina hasn’t been able to effectively deal with the power of the concentrated media (by stopping, dispersing, diminishing their influence). They are a power in fact, that expresses itself shamelessly in the mass media conglomerates, where the financing of agro-export companies expresses itself, as do the dictates of the U.S. embassy. It’s a vicious circle. The Embassy sets the guidelines to favor the interests of the U.S. multinationals inserted in the agricultural sector, and they are defended and promoted by the media. When they are put at risk by sovereign actions, they attack.

If you don’t understand this strategy, you can’t explain how it is that a country which produces food for 400 million people has more than half of its population depending daily on community dining halls financed by the government, because they can’t obtain basic foods.

There is an old joke told in South America, which goes like this: “Why aren’t there coups d’état in the U.S.? Because they don’t have a U.S. Embassy there!”

During the period when progressive governments were moving forward in South America, in Mexico the neoliberals were busy handing over sovereignty to the highest bidder. We didn’t coincide in time. If the fraud committed by President Felipe Calderón had not succeeded in 2006, López Obrador would have been president at the same time as the so-called “Winning Decade” in the south of the continent. That’s why we now have a great opportunity to construct a bridge held together by the coincidence of objectives between Mexico and Argentina.

So far, Mexico’s trade balance is positive, there’s no devaluation of the peso, fiscal discipline is rigorous, corruption has been reined in from the top of political power in the country, not a dollar of debt has been incurred by López Obrador’s “Fourth Transformation” government, and we are investing in social development.

I have personally requested of the President two far-reaching actions. The first is to create a Mexican social network that does not interfere in the democratic processes from a supra-territorial standpoint, and which promotes cultural, educational and economic exchanges of a social nature. The second is to create cooperative models in all of the regions where the government’s infrastructure projects are being developed, to be connected like the gears of a watch to achieve an adequate operational level and facilitate the development of communities that have been left behind. In both cases the response of the President was positive.

China can be a key country to help strengthen the regional strategy. The so-called “Asian giant” does not adopt ideological criteria which limit its negotiating ability. Its strategy is to take advantage of what interests the West, and its planning is medium- to long-term, so it can operate with adequate economic capacity, industrial potential, and trade strategy. By the same token, our countries need a partner that will help them break the vicious cycle of dependence on the United States.

François Jullien, a French philosopher and sinologist, explains in his “Treatise on Efficiency” that the Chinese conceive of efficiency in terms of natural transformation: the strategist makes the situation evolve in his favor the way nature makes plants grow or the way in which a river never stops digging its riverbed. These are principles of so-called biomimesis. Just as with natural changes, the transformation which occurs is both discrete and diffuse, imperceptible along the way but manifest through its effects.

More than in the impact of actions, the Chinese believe in the immanence of transformation. In countless investment projects requiring the inclusion of technologies, such as the Mexican Social Network and its Data Center, as well as in some of the social-economic models that arise from the proposal that I made to the President, China can play a decisive role. The Mexican market of more than 120 million people is very important, because you have to add another 30 million people who live in the United States.

Likewise, the stability of Argentina is imperative. Consider that there is a large community of Argentine citizens living along the world-class tourist stretch of Mexico’s Mayan Railroad. The benefits for Mexico under these models of cooperation are evident. Naturally, in the agro-industrial field, the benefits of Argentine exports will be extraordinary. Mexico has a solid industrial base that can be diversified, and at the same time we can participate in the techno-scientific revolution.

Hybrid warfare has a logic of efficiency which contradicts what China is proposing from its own philosophical perspective. The post-pandemic world will present us with the opportunity to break into a new paradigm: Mexico and Argentina must join their efforts for economic independence, social justice, and political sovereignty. That process has just begun.