Defending sovereignty is now the principal task of Mexico's left, argues Josafat Hernández, as Trump, rating agencies and the far right besiege the 4T.

This article by Josafat Hernández originally appeared in the June 9, 2026 edition of Contralínea, a Mexican investigative magazine.

Last Sunday, May 31, President Claudia Sheinbaum presented a report on the main achievements of her government. It stands out that Mexico continues to be an economy with record figures in foreign direct investment: 23.591 billion dollars in 2026, the highest in recent times. Unemployment is 2.5 percent, one of the lowest in the world. Inflation is going down. The peso remains strong and stable against the dollar (the exchange rate per dollar is at 17.40 pesos). Tourism has also grown because, as the head of state said, “Mexico is in fashion.” The minimum wage continues to improve in such a way that, from 2018 to the present, it maintains a cumulative increase of 154 percent. The welfare programs will reach a coverage of 42.8 million people, with a historic investment of 1 trillion pesos. A pension has been guaranteed to 14.1 million senior citizens and additional support has been given to 3 million women between the ages of 60 and 63.

Among the advances she enumerated is the construction of 29 new hospitals; 300,000 additional educational spaces for students, who are also supported with other social programs like Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro; the construction of new rail lines, infrastructure, and deepening of the rescue of Pemex and CFE. In addition, violence has been decreasing: intentional homicides fell by 49 percent and high-impact crimes by 20 percent, with respect to the 2024 figures.

These are very important achievements that benefit the Mexican working class. There are improvements because wages in general are higher, inflation remains low, social programs continue to guarantee a dignified life for senior citizens, youth, peasants, and women in general. The 40-hour law also helps improve the working conditions of the working class. The fact that the strengthening of internal demand is also guaranteed strengthens the internal market. And with that, we have seen, the population that has started small and medium-sized enterprises, both formal and informal, has benefited. And with that there have been the material conditions that guarantee the social reproduction in Mexico of the working class in general. None of this happened during the neoliberal stage, from 1982 to 2018.

The fight against corruption continues through the SAT and the democratization of all the powers that constitute the Mexican State: executive, legislative, and judicial. Thus, large rentier businessmen have been forced to pay taxes; and they no longer use the Judicial Power to promote amparos that, in the neoliberal stage, served to evade taxes through legal artifices. We see, in that sense, that the 4T has advanced in a fiscal dimension of the class struggle: it seeks for the business class to pay taxes, to do business within the framework of the law, without corruption, and to respect the stewardship of the Mexican State. Because in Mexico it must be clear, just as President Claudia Sheinbaum said, that it is the people who govern.

It is very important, in that sense, to take note both of the final part of the president’s speech and the communication issued by Andrés Manuel López Obrador: in both cases, they speak of what Donald Trump’s government currently means for the country. We are living very complex moments because, as President Sheinbaum said, collaborating is one thing and interventionism is another. And Donald Trump, through the CIA, seeks to intervene in our country’s affairs. The conclusive case is what happened with the CIA agents who died in Chihuahua, who were carrying out field operations supposedly fighting drug trafficking, which the Mexican right in the Chihuahua government allowed. And all of this without informing the federal government.

That is why the president’s denunciation is relevant: there are attempts at foreign interference in our country, which have the favor of right-wing collaborationists, traitors to the homeland. It is clear that Mexico is now under imperialist siege. There is an attempt to destabilize state and federal governments with corruption accusations, as in the case of the governor on leave of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha, that show precisely that tendency of Washington to generate a geopolitical use of issues such as the fight against drugs. And this is complemented by the cognitive war that seeks to generate a demonization of those accused, in this case, politicians close to López Obrador, to generate “symbolic deaths.” The objective of imperialism and the far rights is to undermine the popular support of the entire historical bloc of the 4T by sowing doubts, disappointments, and suspicions.

But it does not stop there. The cognitive war of imperialism is already articulating with the economic war driven by transnational capital. And we see this through the rating agencies, which recently lowered Mexico’s credit ratings. And the argument is that in this country there is a “fiscal problem” derived not from public debts, nor from chronic deficits in public finances, but from “fiscal inflexibility.” And this is so because, the rating agencies argue, Mexico does not have enough resources to undertake new infrastructure projects, as well as the situation that tax exemptions for big capital can no longer be made now.

The problem is that rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s arbitrarily move from a stable to a negative outlook and lower Mexico’s credit rating. This affects the bond values of Mexican public companies, and affects investment flows to the country. Among the rating agencies’ arguments is the supposed uncertainty generated by the application of the reform to the Judicial Power. They say there is a supposed “concentration of power” that breaks the independence of the Judicial Power. It is worth saying that these rating agencies serve the interests of big transnational capital and that, evidently, they do not take into account in their analyses the sentiment of the Mexican people, who demanded the democratization of the Federal Judicial Power.

In this international context, it is very clear that the national-popular process we are living is under siege. And they will look for all ways to destabilize it, including the threats from rating agencies that seek for President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government to submit to an agenda dictated from the financial markets, not from the people of Mexico.

Additionally, it is very important to mention that everything that happens in the country will be distorted by the corporate media and the algorithms of social networks. The objective: to show that Mexico is a failed state, ungovernable, that requires the military and political intervention of Yankee imperialism to establish order.

It is also fundamental to observe that these foreign interventions count on the collaboration of the Mexican far rights. In this context of geopolitical analysis, it is fundamental to consider that any image of confrontation and repression with social movements will be distorted and used as part of the right’s narrative to discredit the current progressive and left-wing government of President Claudia Sheinbaum. Hence the need to appeal to a sense of responsibility in social movements like the CNTE that, while their demands are legitimate, also consider the very complicated geopolitical context our country is going through. That is why it is fundamental to be clear that today we need to defend national sovereignty, because without it, we will not have the conditions to guarantee social and labor rights of any kind.

Finally, it is also very important that the Mexican business class mobilize to invest in the country, within the framework of Plan México. It is very important to reactivate the economy, contribute to the consolidation of the development poles, and also to the development of regional economies to strengthen the internal market. Because in the economic war of Yankee imperialism, the tariff policy is already used as a measure of pressure and blackmail to subjugate entire nations. And in this context of imperial aggression, Mexico needs to take on as a state task the development of the country’s productive forces to strengthen our national sovereignty.

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