Reports of its Death May Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
This column by Julio Hernández López originally appeared in the April 9, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of Mexico Solidarity Media or the Mexico Solidarity Project.
The heated international situation (not only regarding Iran, the United States, and Israel) and the inertia and budgetary shortcomings of Mexico, derived from internal and external factors, are placing Mexico in a process of readjustments more openly geared towards the interests of the financial elites and the broad economic spectrum called neoliberalism (officially declared extinct by the previous President of the Republic; a rhetorical death certificate also brandished by the current President).
A very representative image of the ongoing pragmatism was taken at the National Palace, where the President led a meeting with Laurence (Larry) Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the powerful investment fund (the most important in the world), precisely to talk about the firm’s plans for Mexico.
Each side was accompanied by key members of their teams. Representing BlackRock was Adebayo Ogunlesi, CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, a division specifically dedicated to equity investment in large-scale energy, transportation, and water and wastewater infrastructure projects. On the Mexican side were Finance Secretary Édgar Amador Zamora and Altagracia Gómez (the “Angel of Dependency,” in its second iteration), whom the official statement from the President’s office describes as someone who “provides honorary support for the involvement of the business sector in relocation and regional development projects”.
Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, another key figure in the national redesign, was not present at the meeting. This redesign has been further strengthened by the appointment of his political protégé, Roberto Velasco, as Foreign Minister, replacing Juan Ramón de la Fuente, who stepped down for health reasons after a lackluster tenure. The Ebrard faction maintains its explicit plan to seek the presidency in 2030 and is leveraging its influence within the Mexican and foreign business sectors, particularly in the United States, with a neoliberal vision (the very foundation of this Ebrard-aligned movement) and with the renegotiation of the North American trade agreement as its strategic future strategy.
The day after the meeting with the BlackRock super-sharks, President Sheinbaum made a declarative move forward in positioning a topic prepared months in advance: the “exploration” of the “possibilities” of approving natural gas extraction work using the widely rejected hydraulic fracturing method known as fracking.
During the morning press conference, Energy Secretary Luz Elena González (a member of the president’s inner circle, as is Pemex CEO Víctor Rodríguez Padilla) stated that “the reality is that, as of today, we are importing 75 percent of the natural gas we consume in the country,” with the United States supplying that percentage. She noted that in the Development Hubs (the pinnacle of 4T neoliberalism and its Plan Mexico, in this writer’s opinion; a project for which whatever is necessary must be sacrificed) “the industrial sector, due to the Development Hubs, will require the use of natural gas.”
Then, President Sheinbaum posed a Hamlet-like energy dilemma: “The question is: do we exploit unconventional gas, ‘yes’ or ‘no’? Why ‘yes’? Because it gives us greater energy sovereignty. Why ‘no’? Because it has environmental impacts.” To frack and pollute or not: that is the (supposed) question, although in reality the presidential team has made progress in promoting a supposedly “sustainable” fracking variant, less polluting than in the past.
Next Wednesday, the 15th, announcements will be made to bolster this project and provide details, as it wasn’t possible yesterday because, Sheinbaum said, “we wanted to present this committee of scientists today, but we’re still reviewing it to ensure they truly have… that there’s no political agenda, that it’s a technical definition.” See you tomorrow!
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