Relations between Mexico and Cuba, between the governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and Miguel Díaz-Canel, have been particularly intense in recent years, marked by ideological affinities, the influence of propaganda from Havana in Mexico, and the economic support that AMLO has provided to the Cuban regime amidst the unremitting collapse of Cuban society.
In the coming weeks, Mexico will swear in a new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, heiress to the current ruler, but will relations with Havana change? DIARIO DE CUBA spoke with the Mexican-based Cuban journalist Rubén Cortés, with extensive experience in that country's media, to analyze the current context of bilateral relations, how they have influenced each other, and how they will do so in the future.
What do you think is Cuba's real level of influence in Mexico today?
Havana is supervising and overseeing the design, structure and execution of the dismantling of democracy in Mexico, like it did in Venezuela and Nicaragua, with some variations, depending on local characteristics. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and, with it, the end of the Cuban strategy of exporting Communism across Latin America through guerrilla fighters and urban insurgents, Havana redesigned the method, and instructed Latin American politicians (who it trained for years to seize power in their countries) to change their strategy, which has consisted, since the mid-1990s, of destroying democracy from within, accepting the rules of the democratic game to win elections, and then doing away with the rule of law.
The current president of Mexico is (along with Maduro, in Venezuela; Lula, in Brazil; Evo Morales, in Bolivia; Ortega, in Nicaragua; and Petro, in Colombia) a member of the myriad of Latin American politicians with Cuban training and Castroist support.
Until his 50s the current president of Mexico had only left the country twice, and both were trips to Cuba. In 2006 Fidel Castro mentioned him in one of his usual texts in Granma, writing that "López Obrador will be the person with the most moral and political authority in Mexico when the system collapses and, with it, the mafia in power."
Throughout his two decades of campaigning for the presidency, the current Mexican president was influenced by Havana in every way. And, when he came to power in 2018, he began to pay Cuba back generously for its support: at the economic level, with millions in contributions through agreements shrouded in secrecy; and, at the political level, with no-'expense-spared gestures, such as inviting the ruler to give the keynote speech at the Fiestas Patrias (National Festivities); and boycotting the Summit of the Americas to protest that Cuba was not invited to it, though the event was held in the United States, and it is trade with this country that sustains the Mexican economy, with annual trade worth 800 billion dollars.
What is, in your opinion, the Cuban Government's real level of dependence on support, both political and economic (demonstrated in oil shipments and the hiring of doctors) from Mexico during the AMLO Government?
Cuba's dependence is, basically, economic, with it being difficult to verify the actual amounts because the current Mexican president shut down the autonomous bodies charged with ensuring transparency and information (and in September he will eliminate them by a majority vote in Congress) that functioned in the democratic era, and which he used in his three presidential campaigns to obtain reliable information to attack the governments then in power.
Through various organizations, however, approximate amounts are known, such as the shipment to Cuba of 3,600 barrels per day of gasoline, as well as seven million barrels of oil from 2023 to 2024.
In addition, Mexico pays Cuba $10,700/ month for each of the 3,000 doctors it has hired as slaves, as they receive only $220/month, and only when they return. Havana's sway over the Mexican government is such that it does not mind jeopardizing its own economy to buoy Cuba's a little. The Mexican president also bought nine million doses of Cuba's anti-Covid vaccine, which is a placebo, as Cuba refuses to allow it to be evaluated by external laboratories, even after Moderna, Pzifer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Novavax all did so.
Would the combination of Claudia Sheinbaum's great power and the crisis in Venezuela be a scenario for Cuba to establish Mexico as its main regional ally?
If the comprehensive impoverishment of Venezuela continues, then yes, of course. But support will not grow exponentially. It will be more or less at the same level as under the government of the current president: a few thousand barrels of oil, the purchase of some goods, a few dozen doctors, vaccines. Let's say that it is something whose colloquial simile could be a sip of water that does not quench thirst. Why won't support grow exponentially? Because Mexico will not be able to do more than that, due to its geographic position in the backyard of the US; it is unlikely that America will allow it to become an extractive colony of Cuba, like Venezuela is.
The US will not allow a consensual Cuban "invasion" of Mexico, like in Venezuela, a country that does not share 3,000 kilometers of border with the USA. Neither is Mexico going to commit suicide for Cuba as long as its economic survival depends on its exclusive integration into the US economy.
However, what the US will allow is for Mexico's aid to give Cuba the economic CPR to prevent a crisis that would eventually spark a popular uprising on the island, a humanitarian and political crisis that would inevitably impact the populous and influential enclave of Cuban immigrants in South Florida.
In light of the above, could the recent inauguration of the Benny Moré Mexico-Cuba Center be viewed as an even stronger display of the Cuban government's propaganda in Mexico? Is the Cuban Government "moving its furniture" from Venezuela to Mexico?
It's not moving its furniture, but rather moving more furniture, because now it has more space in which to expand. The inauguration of the Benny Moré Mexico-Cuba Center is part of an incursive effort that the Cuban Government has been making in Mexico since 2018 in the area of culture and the arts, which is an eminently ideological sphere, and one in which it is almost impossible for the United States to intervene, as it limits itself to blocking geopolitical moves, such as Cuba's infiltration of the Armed Forces, the Intelligence apparatus, and the state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, like in Venezuela.
Culture and the arts, sports, and educational exchanges do not enter into the country’s geopolitical priorities, in this case, but it is the area that will become the Trojan Horse for Cuba's penetration into Mexico, especially since the current national-populist regime is here to stay for a quarter of a century, at least.
With facilities like this Benny Moré Mexico-Cuba Center what Cuba (and the US there cannot do anything) will do is carry out an ideological campaign of national-populist indoctrination in popular sectors, schools, and public universities so that Mexico never abandons the current system, based on the purchase of votes with cash gifts to citizens and controlling the powers of the State, institutions and the media.
The Cuban regime is designed to think and structure its plans over decades. The president of Mexico is an example: Havana began grooming him 30 years ago, and 20 years later the man rose to power. And now he's compensating them well.
Considering the 72% popularity rating with which Andrés Manuel López Obrador will step down, what influence can the former president exert on the government of Claudia Sheinbaum?
He will have full and effective influence. To understand the way of governing that was implemented in Mexico in 2018, and that will continue on October 1, the reference point is in Vladimir Putin's Russia; with an overwhelming majority of lawmakers still loyal to López Obrador in Congress, the next president will play the role that Dmitry Medvedev did in Russia: he was president because Putin could not be re-elected, but Putin ruled de facto. Medvedev agreed that pact: to function as a figurehead, but with Putin really at the helm. This is what is happening in Mexico today, where a closed, tight-knit political group has ruled since 2018, one formed a quarter of a century ago by the current president with close friends and family who naturally accept him as the boss for life.
The group operates around the current president, without the slightest opposition, like the Castros in Cuba, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and Putin in Russia: under the mystique of "I would rather be nothing than betray the president", as one of its distinguished members, Ricardo Monreal, has stated. And Monreal is a tough politician who challenged and defeated the PRI's "imperial presidency."
This group today wields all the political and economic power, the Congress, the governorships, and, since October 1, the Supreme Court of Justice and the electoral body. Dozens of members of their families hold office in the three branches and three levels of government. They control all the largesse of the government bureaucracy, and since 2018 they have granted eight out of ten public works contracts to their friends, by divine inspiration, without initiating competitive bidding processes, as required by the Constitution.
The ideological spirit and forces driving regime change in Mexico are from Havana, but the blueprints are from Russia: that is, a fundamentalist ideological commissariat ruling under the legal protection of a faux democracy, a pure facade; one which, in its first six years of absolute control, siphoned off a fortune from the nation's coffers. A mafiocracy.