“PRESIDENT LÓPEZ Obrador is treating the energetic as Fidel Castro treated the casino owners: he summoned them to the old Hilton hotel in Havana and accused them of being exploiters and traitors to the country.”
The words are from an analyst with connections on Capitol Hill, in embassies and with lobbyists from both countries. “John Kerry did not bring in new investors, he brought in the victims of the 4T energy reform.”
Twenty businessmen who wanted to hear solutions to their respective problems participated in the meeting last Thursday. The same ones that today have investments of about 10 billion dollars in suspense.
One was Tim Duncan, the founder and president of Talos Energy, the company that, under Enrique Peña’s energy reform, won a block where the largest oil field was discovered years later.
We are talking about Zama, whose operation was seized by Pemex and the Secretary of Energy in this administration, one of the many files whose investors clamored for a solution from López Obrador.
Zama was present at the meeting that the White House envoy for Climate Change and his entourage sought to turn into a “high-level political dialogue” that would allow progress in solutions to the barrier that the Tabascan counter-reform has become.
Kerry proposed the creation of a bilateral group made up of the Secretaries of Energy of both countries, the Secretary of Economy and the Commercial Representation of the United States, and the companies affected to follow up on the energy reform.
Indeed, López Obrador never expressed a yes or a no to what Kerry expressed, he defended his reform and threatened to expose the companies that benefited from corruption.
At around 7 pm the delegation left the National Palace, Kerry’s banquet declaration on the alleged agreement for the creation of a joint negotiating team came, and from there to the Embassy.
John Kerry and Ambassador Ken Salazar locked themselves in the armored room and met with President Joe Biden via teleconference in which they would report the result of their meeting with López Obrador.
There were basically three messages that were communicated to the president of the United States: a solution to the Zama case, the energy reform would be unblocked and there would be a work commission to accompany the energy reform.
That night of Thursday, March 31, the president of the most powerful country on the planet went to sleep believing that Mexico had accepted an agreement, and Kerry and Salazar thinking that they had fulfilled their mission.
But the awakening of Friday, April 1, with the resounding presidential denial of the morning conference, López Obrador made a fool of the United States, Biden and his envoys.
A situation of supreme confrontation was already created between the United States and Mexico, which was aggravated by López Obrador’s preference for the Army over the Navy, the neighboring country’s historical allies in the fight against drug trafficking.
“The idea of canceling visas, not only for legislators who are sympathetic to Russia and those who vote in favor of the energy counter-reform, is a reality, and it is now extended to military forces as well,” says this careful observer.
BY THE WAY, President López Obrador has made the decision to put under the scrutiny of his regime all the permits, concessions and plans of the private sector, firstly in the energy sector, but from there to any other regulated activity or that implies the authorization of the federal government. After the vote of the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in which seven of 11 ministers declared its Electricity Industry Law unconstitutional and that it did not reach the minimum of six votes to annul the amparos against it, The Tabascan urgently called the National Palace who will be his battering rams to make life complicated for investors, nationals and foreigners, to do business in the country for at least the next three years. Take note of their names. On Thursday, the Secretaries of the Interior, Adán Augusto López; of Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O; of Economy, Tatiana Clouthier, and of Energy, Rocío Nahle; the director of the CFE, Manuel Bartlett, and the heads of Nafinsa and Bancomext, Luis Antonio Ramírez, and of Banobras, Jorge Mendoza. The central instruction was only one: from now on all decisions in economic matters will have to be subordinated to political criteria.
I TOLD HIM THAT last Wednesday there was a council at Pemex. The representative for the Treasury, Undersecretary Gabriel Yorio, advanced the agreement to restructure a 20 billion dollar bond that expired next month. It will be refinanced for 10 years in better conditions. JP Morgan, led by Felipe García-Moreno, is the financial adviser to the oil company led by Octavio Romero. Yorio also reported that the agency will stop paying interest on the debt with the issuance of more debt and that it will do so starting in April with resources from its profits. From January of last year to March, the Treasury has amortized nearly 12 billion dollars a month in interest. The rates at which he contracted are above 9%, which made the service very onerous. But in November of last year, for the first time in six years, the State production company reported profits, in this case close to 80 billion dollars. Given this, the Secretary of the Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, opted to modify the debt payment scheme, which amounts to some 115 billion dollars.
FOR TWO weeks ago, on Jorge Arganis’ desk have been the names of the candidates to relieve the director of Navigation Services in the Mexican Air Space (Seneam). Víctor Hernández is largely to blame for the chaos in flight departure and arrival times at the CdMx International Airport (AICM). In recent days, the level of delay has grown from 45 minutes to an hour and a half on average, due to the disorder caused by air traffic controllers, who, without respecting the slots, provide the service to the airlines, generating a saturation of the AICM which in turn causes flights from other cities to be unable to take off. The two candidates are civil aviator pilots, but Mr. Arganis simply does not feel like giving a smack to this situation and relieve an official who is already a burden for Carlos Morán and Carlos Antonio Rodríguez, directors of the AICM and the Agency Federal Civil Aviation, respectively. Until when, Secretary of Communications?
The SCJN LE amended the plan last week to the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), chaired by Leopoldo Melchi, after annulling a resolution in which it refused to authorize the crossed participation of Trafigura. This occurs when a trading company is a client of a storage or transport facility in which it also has a capital participation. In this case, Trafigura took the participation to the Federal Competition Commission (Cofece) to ensure that it did not imply dominance in the market. The instance chaired by Brenda Grisela Hernández gave a favorable opinion while the CRE rejected it. Unanimously, the First Chamber, chaired by Margarita Ríos-Farjat, ruled that Cofece is the authority and invalidated the negative resolution of the CRE, which confirms that Trafigura does not affect the market, on the contrary, it increases the supply options and the competition.
THE FOURTH TRANSFORMATION WILL BE REPUBLISHED ON TUESDAY, APRIL 19.
#Kerry #Kens #big #shots