President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated this Monday, March 18, that since 1938, with ups and downs, oil exploitation has allowed income to the public treasury like no other economic activity in the history of Mexico.
At the ceremony for the 86th Anniversary of the Oil Expropriation, the president pointed out that during the neoliberal period, from 1983 to 2018, for 36 years, 30 cents of each peso of the national budget came from the oil industry.
This explains why oil has always been the great temptation for locals and foreigners, the head of the Executive stressed.
While some presidents of the Republic have wanted to privatize it in different ways, with contracts of all kinds, other leaders, such as Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, Adolfo López Mateos, even Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, knew how to apply the teaching of General Lázaro Cárdenas of applying oil and its derivatives for the benefit of the people of Mexico, he maintained.
López Obrador recalled the words of former President Lázaro Cárdenas: “whoever hands over Mexico's natural resources to foreigners is a traitor to the country, I have said.”
In his message, the man from Tabasco mentioned that the anniversary of the oil expropriation was a truly historic event.
“In Mexico and the world, oil has always aroused greed, it has generated oppression, violence and subjugation, but it has also meant progress, justice, patriotism and well-being for the people,” said the President.
The president pointed out that in Mexico, since oil was discovered in the 19th century, and until March 18, 1938, the non-renewable natural resource is related to evil.
“The Chontal indigenous people said that whoever touched it would become a pile of salt, it was from the devil, as expressed in Ramon López Velarde's poem,” said López Obrador.
“The least mystical and most real thing is that oil during the Porfiriato and before the expropriation only produced suffering and pain for Mexicans for the complacency and profit of foreign companies and governments.”
The Tabasco native highlighted that Lázaro Cárdenas, in addition to recovering for the benefit of the nation, began to conceive it as a lever for the development of Mexico and, starting in 1938, the oil industry allowed the country to achieve good levels of economic growth.
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