 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're joined by Alina Duarte, Independent Journalist and Researcher. She's here to talk with us about Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, who has recently made international headlines over the past several months with his bold stances and actions which have challenged US hegemony in Latin America and globally. Thank you so much for joining us, Alina. Thanks for inviting me, Soy. My pleasure. Well, to start off, the most recent incident of this is that this week, Amlo made a statement that he was going to raise the case of Julian Assange, who's the co-founder of WikiLeaks Publisher, who's currently in prison in the UK. He's going to bring the attention of the United States, the case of Julian Assange. He even said that the Statue of Liberty should be torn down if Julian Assange is convicted and sentenced in the United States. How can we understand this really bold stance against the US and where does it come from? Well, we just started several years ago when precisely WikiLeaks revealed the conspiracy against him, against Amlo for many years. So he's very grateful to him and to WikiLeaks for showing this to the Mexicans, to the world, that he was not lying. All the media outlets here in Mexico were saying that Amlo was kind of crazy, saying that there was a conspiracy against him, including the US Embassy. And when Julian Assange through WikiLeaks showed all of these in Mexico, it changed the relationship with the media, the Mexican people just decided to believe him. So he's really grateful to him and to WikiLeaks. This is not the first time that he says something similar, like this is like the second, third time that he is put in the middle of the debate in Mexico. What does Julian Assange means to not only for Mexico, but for the rest of the world? He was saying that during the next week when he's gonna have this visit to Washington with Joe Biden, he's gonna ask him to release and stop persecuting Julian Assange. I don't think this is gonna happen, but of course that in Latin America and in the rest of the world, and also for journalists like you, like me, it's very important what is gonna happen with Julian Assange. And Amlo is conscious about that. Recently I had the opportunity to interview also Julian Assange brother, and he was really grateful to with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for asking for the liberation of Assange. So it's not something new, but I'm really happy to see a president like Amlo now asking for the liberation of a journalist like Julian. I think it sets an extremely strong precedent and not many heads of state are doing that across the world. Another precedent setting statement by Amlo was recently with regards to the Summit of the Americas and you and I were both in Los Angeles during this summit at the People's Summit for Democracy. And Biden's summit was essentially a failure. And I think largely that's due to the position of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who said that he wouldn't attend the summit. So can you talk about this decision to not attend the summit? Where did this come from? Yeah, well, I'm really impressed about these statements of Lopez Obrador. A few years ago, this would have been impossible to hear of a president like him. I think something changed in his foreign policy after the coup in Bolivia. Remember, we had Evo Morales here exiled after October 2019. During the coup, he was exiled here. And I think something changed in foreign policy in Mexico. Also last year during the anniversary of Simón Bolívar, I remember this speech of Amlo saying for the first time that we need another Latin America. Questioning the OAS, questioning the role of the U.S. in the region. And I think the Summit of the Americas, the Summit of the Exclusion was this key point. You know, like when he could show to the world what he is asking for the region and what he's thinking for the next years. We don't have a reelection here in Mexico. So we are gonna have only three more years of Amlo's administration. So it's a very short time, a period of time to change, of course, the region. A lot of the issues in the region have changed during these three years. Also, if we look to the south, if we see what happened in Colombia, also in Honduras, what's gonna happen also this year in Brazil. We know that this plan is possible. Another Latin America and the Caribbean is possible. So the Summit of the Americas shown this leadership of the Mexican government. I have no doubt about it that now Amlo is the leader of the region. Questioning with Almagro, the OAS, the role of the U.S., the Monro Zoctrín. Also questioning the U.S. about freedom and democracy when it comes about Julian Assange. So I'm really happy to see that things now after we had these so progressive, so-called progressive governments from 2000, from 1999 with Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, until 2009, 10 when we saw also the return of the right-wing governments through coup d'etat through a disabilization and things like this. So now we're seeing another cycle of these so-called progressive governments. And Amlo, it's like naturally now the leadership of the region. So let's see what's gonna happen with organizations like CELAC, like UNASUR, like this, another organization. The organization that are outside the control, the U.S. regime. So I think Amlo is conscious about the role that Mexico is having in the region. With his publicly, he's not saying anything about Venezuela, but we stopped attacking Venezuela. We were heading, we were the leaders of the attacks of Venezuela during the last administration under Enrique Peña's administration at the way, yes, with the Cartel de Lima, El Grupo de Lima. And now we are changing all of our foreign policies. So I think this year, Amlo says during his conference two weeks ago in the Mañanera, in the so-called Mañanera, that he was actually saying that Lula is gonna win in Brazil. So I'm really happy to see that there was a kind of block of governments supporting these questions to the U.S. imperialism through the leadership of a Mexican president, López Obrador. Well, in a lot of your work, Alina, as you've been covering over the past couple of years in Amlo's administration, his changes have not only been in his international policy, but there have been a lot of important domestic efforts trying to bridge some of the historic socioeconomic inequality in Mexico, trying to change some of the structure. Can you talk about some of these domestic policies, some of the reforms that he's tried to pass? What impact have these had on Mexican society? It's not so different of what have been going on in Latin America for the last 20 years with the so-called progressive governments. We've seen the redistribution of the wealth of the government in Mexico through social programs. Now people going to the school, to the middle school, the elementary school, high school, and even with the university, now there are so many programs. And there are more than 10 million of people older than 65 years old that now are receiving an economic support. Like most of the students in high school or in elementary school are having access to these social programs. I mean, there are so many programs that you can have access to. And after a pandemic, also we had a redistribution of the health system. It's something that the president was saying that he was gonna do before the pandemic. I mean, it was one of the promise that every single Mexican would have access to an hospital or medical services. But with the pandemic, there was a lot of invest in the hospitals in every single issue about the health system. Also with education, as I was saying, there are so many programs about that. And I think that, as I said, it's very similar of what was going on in Latin America with these governments. But I think that we need to think what's gonna happen after that. It's not gonna be enough. We saw this in Ecuador. We've seen this in Bolivia. It's not enough just having the support of the people or even having these social programs. What we need is to debate. We need to build organizations, not to let the opposition to take the streets or the media outlets. For example, here I have always this debate that now that the Morena and Amlo are in government, what we should do with the public media outlets. So there are so many issues that are still on debate. I'm sure that in 2018, this was the best option, electoral option. And now what we need to think it's this alliance, for example, with the feminist movements. Of course, there is a sector of liberal or even right wing feminists in this country as in the rest of Latin America. There are a lot of feminists also that are contributing to the social division of what's gonna happen with the so-called for transformation, La Cuatro Tela, La Cuarta Transformación here in Mexico. So also the relationship, I think it's on debate, the relationship with the social movements, with the organizations. This is not like the mass in Bolivia or now with the Pacto Historico in Colombia. This was just an alliance between the electoral projects with the parties in the country, not with organizations, social movements. There are still a lot of debts, for example, with indigenous movement, with one part of the indigenous movement, there is another that is already having benefits with their territories, with negotiations, et cetera, et cetera. And I think a lot of things have changed. It's not gonna be enough. We've seen this in Latin America during the last 20 years. It's not enough just voting. We need to keep organizing. We need to transform also the public media outlets. We need to keep thinking about what's gonna happen after 2024 elections. In three years, AMLO, it's not gonna be in power anymore. Now even when we are two years behind this election, I mean, we have two years to think what's gonna happen. There are now, we can see who wants to be the next candidate to be the next president in Mexico. So let's see what is gonna happen. So far, I think there have been so many change. I think the more visible part of this administration is the foreign policy, but also in the domestic one, I think there have been so many changes. Definitely. And finally, as you mentioned before, next week, AMLO is gonna be traveling to Washington to meet with Joe Biden. What are some of the key topics that they're gonna be discussing at this meeting? Well, of course we have one main issue that it's migration. AMLO in these conferences has said that he's also gonna put in evidence the Congress, I mean, who are gonna vote against this immigration reform in the U.S. And he's putting a lot of pressure. Also, he said that he's gonna ask Biden for visas for like people who wants to work in the U.S. I think this is not only, it's not a concern only for Mexico, but for Latin America. And also with this issue against during this war against in Ukraine, what we've seen is inflation, the economic inflation. So AMLO said that he is gonna ask for a plan that benefits the whole region. Also, he was asked during these past days, what he's gonna ask specifically on the issues on migration to Joe Biden. And he said that he's gonna wait until the meeting. He's not gonna say what he's gonna say. But I think these are the main issues. Also, I would love to listen that in this meeting they talk about, for example, gun violence and the armed traffic in our border is definitely one of the key issues for us for like understanding the violence that we are still here in our country. The violence even is worse than a lot passed administration and it's something that we need to say because AMLO said that he's not gonna continue these so cool war on drugs and trying to kill every narco in our country. So he stopped that. But at the same time, the violence in Mexico hasn't stopped the violence against journalists, against women. We are a country with 10 or 11 feminists sites a day. So the violence hasn't stopped with something really, I don't know how, fortunately, I'm not the president of Mexico because I don't know how to stop it. But that's why I would love to listen something about gun violence, about our trafficking in our border specifically. We know that under Obama's administration and here in Mexico, it was Felipe Calderon, the president. These fast and furious, it was the name of this plan that the US gave thousands of guns. They tried to infiltrate guns through the border with the knowledge of the president. And at the end, they didn't know where the arms were until the DEA agent was killed with these arms. So we already know that all of these armed traffic finished in the hands of the narco traffic here in Mexico. So it's something that I know it's very difficult to put in a debate between Mexico and the US because there are so many injuries, the NRA or the industrial complex, you know, it's so difficult. And this is not something that is still, or we don't know that they're gonna talk about this issue. Also, I think regionally talking, we have to listen something after the summit of the Americas, the summit of the exclusion. I'm really sure that they're gonna talk about, I'm not specifically about the OAS, but definitely we need to listen something about how the US is gonna steal participating or, you know, like, I don't know how to say it because it's, what Amlo is asking is like to dismantle US imperialism and it's not something for a press conference, of course. But I think Amlo is gonna say something about the region and about Cuba. I think it's one of the main issues that Amlo has taken in his hands. Cuba for him is so important. He has asked him for end the blockade several times. I think this is not gonna be the exception. So let's see, but we are sure so far that he's gonna talk about migration, about the economic inflation. Let's see if he says something about this regional solidarity and the role of the US after the summit of the Americas. So this is the main debates that are in the table of Mexico and the US. Well, thank you so much, Alina, for that very informative report. And we'll definitely be coming back to you for more updates on how this visit went and what are the next steps for Mexico. So thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for inviting me. My pleasure every single time that you invite me. I'll be here. Thank you.